


I would spend forever waiting for you

by Marshmiillow



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: 160 never worked, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Canon Asexual Character, Communication, Everybody Lives, Fluff, Gender Non-Conforming Tim Stoker, Healthy Relationships, Jon sets healthy boundaries, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Minor Original Character(s), Swearing, Teacher Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, The Mechanisms Were The Archivist's College Band, Touch-Averse Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Wedding Fluff, Wedding Planning, Weddings, they have a cat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:07:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 30,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25351369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marshmiillow/pseuds/Marshmiillow
Summary: Jon and Martin have been together for two years now, living in a house in the Scottish highlands. Jon works as an English teacher at the local secondary school, whilst Martin works odd jobs. They have a cat named Hudson. They decide to get married.
Relationships: Background Alice "Daisy" Tonner/Basira Hussain, Background Georgie Barker/Melanie King - Relationship, Background Tim Stoker/Sasha James, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist/Martin Blackwood
Comments: 141
Kudos: 386





	1. The Proposal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KazzleDazzle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KazzleDazzle/gifts).



> Thank you so much to my dear friend Kaz for helping come up with the ideas for this and to the RQ discord for providing motivation to keep me going

Jon hummed happily, resting his hands over Martin’s where they were wrapped around his waist. Sat in Martin’s lap, laid across the sofa and with his head tucked under his boyfriend’s chin, Jon was perfectly content to sit here watching Netflix forever. 

“Comfy there?” Martin asked with fond amusement.

“Very,” Came Jon’s smug reply.

There was another moment of perfect silence between them, and Martin kissed the top of Jon’s head. After another moment of quiet contemplation, he spoke again.

“Jon… have you ever thought about getting married?” Martin asked, sounding completely innocent.

Jon spluttered, and a blush bloomed across his cheeks. “Uh, what?”

“Have you ever thought about getting married? Y’know, having a wedding.” 

“I-I understood you, just-... it took me by surprise. Um, no, not particularly, why…?” He asked, sitting up and moving to sit perpendicular to Martin, still on his lap but now able to see his face. 

“Well… I guess I was just thinking about it? We’ve never talked about it before. I mean, it’s completely fine if you don’t want to! It’s just.. well, we’ve been dating for a while now, y’know?”

Jon was silent for a long moment, which didn’t help Martin’s nerves. “...You would _want_ to marry me?” He asked incredulously. 

“Uh, yeah? Jon, I love you. We’ve been dating for two years-“ 

“Sorry, sorry, I know. Well, I’m certainly not against marrying you, if that’s what you want.”

“Y-yeah?” Martin replied, now his turn to blush.

“Yeah. I mean, we should probably talk about it more before we really _do_ anything, I don’t want to rush into something like that.”

“Of course. ...We could talk about it now?” Martin offered tentatively. 

Jon reached for the remote and turned the movie they had on down. Neither had really been paying close attention anyway, so neither minded. 

“Alright. Let’s talk about it. I’ll be honest, I don’t know that much about weddings. Never been to one.”

“What? Has no one in your family ever gotten married?” Martin asked in disbelief. 

“Uh, no? I don’t know anyone in my extended family, and my immediate family were either already married or dead shortly after I was born.” 

“R-right. Well, I guess the first thing to discuss is getting engaged? I mean, do we want to do engagement rings and make a deal out of it, or…?” Martin asked. Jon shrugged. “That’s not helpful, Jon. Talk to me.” 

“Right, sorry. I don’t feel strongly one way or the other? I don’t really want to have a party about it, and I’d rather not do big extravagant engagements, and well… which one of us would ask?” He asked.

“...I’d like to ask you, if you won’t hate the surprise?” Martin replied softly.

“Of course not. Honestly, I’m glad, I wouldn’t know where to begin with asking.” 

“Mhm. Do you want a ring? I’m happy to go non-traditional if you want,” Martin asked, putting his hand on Jon’s thigh and smiling at him softly. 

“What sort of thing would you even use if not a ring?” Jon asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, I’ve seen people use necklaces, flowers, bracelets, knives,” He listed, interrupted by Jon. 

“Knives?” He questioned, looking mildly concerned.

“Yeah, like, decorative engraved daggers and stuff. They look pretty cool,” Martin explained.

“I see… hm, I think a ring will do fine, Martin. Maybe not a gold and diamond type, and it doesn’t have to be expensive.”

“Well, then we’ll have to look at rings together so you can point out ones you like and I can get ideas for what to get for you.” 

“Uh, yes, alright…” He agreed. 

“Do you want to go back to Netflix now?” Martin asked softly, recognising the look on Jon’s face that meant he didn’t want to continue the conversation.

“Yes, please. Something better than this, though,” He replied, grabbing the remote again and going back to the menu.

—-

The next morning, when Martin woke up to Jon already sat up in bed and Hudson, their cat, snuggled against his side, he wasn’t surprised to see Jon looking at something on his phone. He hummed a greeting, and Jon smiled down at him fondly.

“Good morning,” He said, voice full of adoration, leaning down to kiss him sweetly and indicate to him that he was open to lots of physical affection that day. They’d devised the system a while ago; a kiss on the lips is lots of physical affection, a kiss on the cheek is mild amounts, a forehead kiss is no more than occasional handholding, and no kiss at all meant Martin knew to keep contact limited that day.

“Mmmorning,” Martin mumbled, smiling as he sat up a little. “Whatcha lookin at?” He asked, shuffling closer to lean on his shoulder and look, careful not to disturb their still sleeping furry companion.

Jon blushed as he showed Martin. He was looking at rings, currently various tungsten rings. “Oh,” Martin mumbled in mild surprise. “Find anything?” He asked as he sat up properly and smiled as Hudson stretched and moved to Martin’s lap.

“Well, I’ve decided I don’t want anything with any kind of a gem on it. Call me boring but I quite like the polished tungsten rings? There’s one with an opal inlay that looks nice,” He replied, reaching over to scratch Hudson’s head a little.

“Well, that’s good to know,” Martin replied, filing that information for later. “Did you sleep at all last night?” He asked. 

“Uh… no,” Jon admitted a little shyly. Martin looked at him with sympathy and concern.

“You really should go talk to a doctor about it, Jon, you can’t keep not sleeping,” He chided, finally getting up and starting to change out of his pyjamas, watching Hudson scamper off to somewhere else.

“I know, I know. I will, I promise,” He replied, putting his phone down to follow Martin’s suit in getting dressed. “But I’m just… worried they’re going to find something even more inhuman about me.”

Martin walked up behind him and wrapped his arms around him, kissing the top of his head. “I know. But you still need to take better care of yourself. Coffee?” 

“Please,” Jon replied, pulling on his trousers and buttoning his shirt as he followed Martin down to the kitchen. Martin flicked the kettle on as he started to pour himself cereal, putting toast in for Jon, as was their routine every morning. 

“Ugh, getting up at 6 every day is still awful no matter how much I do it,” Martin complained, making a cup of tea for himself and coffee for Jon. 

“Maybe you should start drinking coffee in the mornings, then,” He retorted, kissing his cheek as he took the offered mug and sipped it. 

“Never in a million years will I touch that gross bean water. Why do you even drink it?” 

“Caffeine. I need it so I don’t collapse on my desk before first period is over,” He replied, taking his toast out exactly as it popped and buttering it quickly. 

“Understandable, I guess. I’m surprised The Eye can’t keep you awake all day.”

“Unfortunately not.” Jon slurped some more of his coffee before he ventured back upstairs to find his jumper, the early morning chill seeping through his shirt. He came back down awkwardly pulling his shirt collar out from it, and Martin watched him from over his bowl of cereal with affection. 

“So, what’s on the lesson plan for today?” He asked, only half-interested as Jon started talking about starting Act 3 of Macbeth with his GCSE students, and doing non-ficiton writing with his other class, and so on. He liked to hear Jon talk, and he knew Jon liked to go over his lesson plans out loud with someone he could pretend was listening. 

“...And that’ll be it for the day, but I’ll probably stay late to tidy up at least. Anyway, what’s on for you today?” He asked, careful to avoid lacing it with any compulsion. 

“I’ve got Riley and Spark for morning walks, then I’m helping Mrs McCarthy do some shopping, then I have Riley, Lily, Hamish and Nelson for afternoon walks, then I’m going to help set up bingo night at the community centre,” Martin listed. “Going to have my hands full this afternoon. I’ll make sure to stop by with lunch for you, though,” He promised.

Jon smiled and kissed him, finishing his coffee and toast and shoving all his lesson plans, marking, and materials into his satchel, along with a statement and recorder just in case he wasn’t home before the Eye started throwing hissy fits. He pulled his shoes on, ran upstairs to brush his teeth, and came back with a hairbrush and bobble. Martin smiled as he put his bowl in the sink and moved to sit on the sofa with him, gently taking the brush and slipping the hair bobble onto his wrist. Humming with satisfaction, Jon let his eyes close as Martin began to brush his hair out, and carefully braid it, only opening one slightly when Hudson jumped into his lap. Whilst Martin finished the braid, he idly ran his hand through the brown tabby’s fur, smiling to himself when Martin kissed his neck to indicate he was done. Jon looked at the clock and sighed.

“Right, I best be getting off then. Don’t want to be late,” He stated, gently nudging Hudson off his lap so he could stand up and pull on his coat, flattening the lapels before taking his satchel from Martin. They kissed, but the sweetness was cut by Hudson’s indignant meowing from the kitchen. Sharing a laugh, Jon waved goodbye to Martin and Hudson, whilst Martin waved him off and went through to the kitchen to feed him. 

—-

Three weeks later, on the same day of the week, after putting Mrs McCarthy’s shopping away for her and making the mistake of asking if she needed anything else, Martin had ended up mowing her lawn for her. After collecting his payment, he decided to take a much needed break, and walked down to the little cafe in the town centre. Whilst he was sipping his tea and enjoying a prawn salad sandwich, he gazed out of the window, and for the first time really noticed the jewellery shop opposite. Once he’d finished and paid, he ventured over to the little shop to look at rings. 

Him and Jon had discussed it a little more since they first brought it up; Jon had spent a little longer looking at rings and showed Martin a handful he liked. He found out and told Martin his ring size. They hadn’t begun to discuss all the other parts of getting married, even if Martin kept thinking about it a lot and wanted to. He didn’t want to push the subject, especially when for the past four days, Jon had been feeling rather touch-averse, and that usually meant generally a little more affection-averse too. 

The small shop only had a few rings on display in the window of the style Jon had indicated a preference for, but one really caught Martin’s eye. A polished tungsten carbide ring, with a thin line of black opal around it. And it was definitely within his price range…  
Acting mostly on impulse, Martin went into the shop, announced by the small bell over the door, and asked about the ring in the window. The old gentlemen behind the counter pulled out a tray full of rings of the same design in a range of sizes, and luckily had Jon’s in stock. Martin bought it there and then, but paused when he was asked if he wanted the inside engraved. Biting his lip, he thought for a long moment, then nodded.

With the ring in its small velvet box sat in his pocket, going back to work was even more tedious. He did his usual dog walk, helped set up at the community centre, and was practically giddy as he walked home to wait for Jon to get back. When his soon-to-be-fiancé (an idea that made Martin’s heart do double-time and his thoughts all melt!) eventually came home, he really wanted to sweep him up in a hug and kiss him, but restrained himself. He wasn’t going to invade Jon’s space, especially not when he’d already set a clear boundary this morning.

“Evening,” Jon called, throwing his keys into the tray and dumping his satchel and coat on the hooks by the door, kicking his shoes off as he made his way to sit on the sofa next to Martin. 

“Hey, babe,” Martin called, smiling at him. Jon blushed slightly at the nickname and raised an inquisitive eyebrow. 

“What’s got you looking like the cat who got the cream?” He asked, leaning back and crossing his legs. 

“Oh-! Uh, nothing, nothing. Not something I want to tell you yet,” Martin replied, knowing Jon would take that as a cue not to ask more. 

“Alright. Well, I look forward to finding out whatever it is,” He replied, closing his eyes and looking rather tired. 

“Long day at school?” Martin asked with sympathy. Jon just nodded in response. “Do you want tea, a statement or both?” 

“I did read a statement during break, but it wasn’t related to the fears. Deeply unsatisfying,” He replied with a sigh. “Both would be great.”

Martin nodded and shuffled into the kitchen to make him a cup of tea, rifling through the statement folder to pick one out for him - ever since Jonah-Elias’ little stunt, Martin would pre-read them to find a good one for Jon. Nothing obviously not connected to the fears, and nothing that was secretly an attempt to end the world; it was mostly in case Jonah-Elias tried again. Once he’d found one, he carefully set both items on the coffee table in front of Jon, offering a smile back when Jon opened his eyes to smile at him appreciatively. 

“Are you feeling okay?” Martin asked gently.

“I’m fine. I just… need a good statement, tea, and some rest,” He replied, picking up the mug from the coffee table. 

“Right. I’ll leave you to do your recording, I’m going to go do some washing up and start thinking about dinner,” Martin told him, wishing he could kiss him before he left to do just as he’d said.

When it came to what to make for dinner, Martin decided on something comforting - spaghetti bolognese. Warm and filling, and pretty easy to make. He started pulling the ingredients from the fridge-freezer, and grinned as Hudson appeared at his ankles. “Hey, noisy,” He teased, putting some dinner down for him before he continued his cooking. When he had just added the sauce to the mince, Jon walked in, taking a deep breath and grinning as he picked up a crying Hudson to cuddle. 

“Smells good,” He commented, leaning against the worktop. “What’s for dinner?”

“Spaghetti bolognese,” Martin replied with a grin, looking over his shoulder at them. “Good statement? You look better.” 

“Much better. It was a Lonely one, and well, The Eye seems to like those.”

“I don’t know whether to be relieved or concerned?” Martin questioned. Jon chuckled.

“Couldn’t say. But it helped.”

“Good! I’m glad. How was work today?” He asked as he stirred the sauce and checked the state of the spaghetti. He let Jon rant about how bad the national curriculum was at teaching Shakespeare again, only half listening as he finished up dinner and started to plate it. 

When they sat down to eat, with Hudson hovering around their feet, Martin couldn’t help but think of the ring box still in his jacket pocket and smile. 

“What’s got you grinning?” Jon asked as he started to eat. 

“Oh, just… thinking about getting engaged. Plotting what I’m going to do,” He replied, and that got Jon blushing lightly. 

“Still can’t believe you really want to marry me,” He muttered, and Martin rolled his eyes. 

“I don’t know why. We’ve been together for 2 years, is it so hard to believe?” 

Jon knew that question was rhetorical. “So, do I get to know the plan…?”

“Absolutely not!” Martin laughed. “It’s a surprise. Besides, I’m still working with a few ideas.”

“Well if you told me I could help you decide,” Jon pointed out. 

“I’ll figure it out, don’t worry. I know you don’t like not knowing things, so I also promise it won’t be too long until you find out.” 

Jon blushed darker at that. “Do you have a ring, yet?” He asked softly.

“Yes,” He answered, biting his lip gently. 

Jon nodded and went back to focusing on his dinner. “I look forward to it. This is really good, by the way.”

“Thanks! Honestly I didn’t do much, the sauce is from Tesco, so…” 

“It’s still good,” Jon insisted, smiling softly over at him. 

“Thanks…. I love you, Jon, you know that, right?” He said, returning the soft smile. 

“Of course. I love you too.” 

——

It was going to be a Saturday, just over two weeks since the proposal had been mentioned over dinner. Martin had spent almost every day leading up to this sneaking in another look at the ring, reading the engraving over again and solidifying his plan. They’d been on spontaneous walks around the loch before, and even went last week, so Jon would have no reason to suspect anything. This time their route would be a little different, though - detouring so they would end up on the beach. They had never gone onto the beach before, mostly due to both of them having certain associations with it, but Martin was determined to overwrite those associations for the both of them. Of course, he didn’t want to force it, so he planned to suggest it just before they’d need to detour and gauge Jon’s reaction. Foolproof. 

Friday evening, when Jon got home from work - back into a phase of touch-averseness, but that was unsurprising, since Martin had gotten one cheek kiss in the last two weeks; not that he minded at all! He loved that Jon was getting used to setting proper boundaries - Martin made him a cup of tea in his favourite mug, watched whatever boring documentary took his fancy with him, and they ordered a take-out pizza for dinner. Going to sleep that evening proved interesting, with Jon being his usual insomniac self, and Martin unable to sleep due to nerves. Jon expressed his concerns that Martin was usually asleep by now, and is everything okay? He promised he was fine, just thinking about things, and Jon nodded and went back to reading.

Eventually, they both managed to drift off, and due to it being a Saturday (and one Martin had made no plans for except this), they were afforded the rare treat of a lie in. Neither woke until 11am, when Martin started to stir, but he was reluctant to move, especially not with a cat tucked against him on one side and Jon a short gap from him on the other. Jon didn’t wake up until 12:30, and Martin had been forced to get up and feed Hudson before then, but was now laid next to him on the bed playing games on his phone. 

“Good morning,” Jon murmured, sitting up to lean over and kiss his cheek. 

Martin smiled and took his hand to kiss his knuckles. “Good morning gorgeous. Sleep well?” He asked. 

“Mm,” He grumbled, rubbing a hand over his face and sitting up, running a hand through his scruff and absently thinking he should probably shave soon. 

“You’re not shaving it yet, I like it~” Martin insisted, knowing what the look on his face meant when paired with him touching his jaw like that. 

“Mmm,” He hummed again, smiling at him and standing up to stretch. Martin admired the section of stomach that got exposed, and set his phone aside to get dressed too. 

“I thought maybe we could go for a walk to the loch, today?” Martin suggested as he pulled on a pair of light blue jeans. 

“Uh, sure. Is the weather forecast good?” 

“Partly cloudy all day but not a drop of rain, says the weatherman,” He replied, having checked the weather forecast many times already. 

“Then sure. First, brunch, though,” Jon said as he pulled on shirt and left it unbuttoned over his t-shirt. 

“Of course. We have leftover pizza, if you want that?” Martin offered. Jon hummed sleepily and nodded. “And tea?” Another nod. “I’ll get right on it~” He promised, kissing his hair softly before he disappeared to the kitchen. Jon took a moment to make himself more presentable, and followed Martin downstairs to eat leftover pizza for breakfast. He leant against the counter and shortly after had tea pressed into his hands. 

“Thank you. Uh, when were you thinking of going walking? I really need to do some marking.”

“No, you’re going to take a day off. You work too much,” Martin told him. “But we can go whenever you want.”

“Mmm. Well, after brunch, then?” Jon offered, sitting down at the table to munch his way through a reheated pizza slice. 

“Sounds perfect.” 

Once they’d both eaten, and Martin had brushed Jon’s hair and spent entirely too long intricately braiding it, they dug out their walking shoes. Martin pulled on his jacket and smiled at the box in his left pocket, and then they set off towards the loch. Just as he had planned, when they got to a few minutes before the detour, Martin broke the conversation with the idea.

“Hey… what do you think about maybe going onto the beach? It’s a pretty nice day for it, don’t you think?” He suggested, a little apprehensive about it.

Jon looked slightly concerned. “Are you sure? I thought you wanted to avoid beaches.”

“Well, I did, but today I don’t. I’m sure if you are,” Martin promised, taking a step towards the alternative path. Jon smiled gently. 

“Alright. To the beach, then.” 

Martin grinned and a soft blush crept onto his cheeks as the anticipation grew the closer to the beach they got. Jon squeezed his hand and he beamed at him, which only made Jon smile in response. As they approached the middle of the shore, Martin turned to Jon and toyed with the ring box in his pocket. 

“Jon? Uh…” He started, taking a deep breath as Jon’s focus turned to be on him completely. “...I’ve loved you for a long, long time. Even when I thought you would never return the feelings, they never went away, and then when I...when I thought you were going to be gone forever, they never got any less, even when I pushed you away. You waited for me, and despite everything, you followed me into a place where you could’ve gotten stuck, and you saved me from myself on that long, laconic shore. I still love you, so much. And well, if you’ll have me, I would really like to spend the rest of my life with you.” 

Jon was blushing furiously, and at a complete loss for words, staring as Martin got down on one knee and pulled out a ring box. 

“Jonathan Sims, will you marry me?” 

The ring was beautiful. Polished black metal, shimmering gemstone, and an engraving on the inside. He gasped softly as he read it; 

_I would spend forever waiting for you_

Jon’s brain was so full and yet his mouth was completely empty. He couldn’t do anything but stare, wide-eyed and stunned. 

“...Jon?” Martin prompted softly, the lump in his throat only getting bigger. 

That managed to snap him out of it, as he finally found the words. Or, word.

“Yes! God, yes, of course yes, a thousand times yes, always yes,” He replied, waiting until Martin was back on his feet to pull him into a deep, loving kiss. Martin yelped a little but was very pleasantly surprised, grinning into the kiss and blushing furiously as Jon continued to kiss him over and over. 

They devolved into giggles when Jon finally let Martin go. Jon blushed furiously as Martin gently took his hand and slid the ring onto his finger. 

“Do you like it?” He asked softly.

“I love it. I love _you_ ,” Jon replied, kissing him again. 

Martin giggled and returned the kiss. “We’re gonna get married~” He giggled. “Oh, I get to call you my fiancé now!” He grinned. Jon blushed. 

“Yes, and I get to call you that too. C’mon, let’s go home. I know you probably want to start telling everyone.” 

“Who do you want to tell first?” Martin asked, taking his hand to hold again as he put the now empty ring box back into his pocket. 

“I’m not sure. Maybe Tim and Sasha?” He suggested, staring at the ring on his finger and admiring the shifting colours of the opal. 

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” He hummed, lifting the hand he was holding to kiss his knuckles. “I love you.” 

“I love you too, Martin. I love you so much.”


	2. Planning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Following the proposal, news spreads and the boys start to make plans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank u kaz for saving me in beta'ing this chapter, suggesting ideas, correcting grammar etc. ur a godsend. thank you to everyone who commented on the previous chapter for keeping me motivated. this chapter's kind of chunky and im sorry but i like talking about suits

Once home, they shed their coats and walking shoes, and Martin made them both some tea before they curled up on the sofa together, Jon happily snuggling into Martin’s side. He texted Tim to ask if he was busy, and when he said ‘no, not really, but sash is here, why?’, he was quick to explain that they wanted to video call and tell them both something. 

The call connected, and showed Tim draped over Sasha’s shoulder to include her in the frame. 

“Hey lovebirds! What’s up?” He greeted, grinning. 

“Well…” Martin started, trailing off nervously and being a little surprised when Jon picked it up. 

“We got engaged,” He said, very matter-of-factly and a little bit smugly as he held up his hand with the ring to the camera. Martin smiled bashfully and looked away, trying to somewhat hide his red cheeks.

Sasha smiled. “Congratulations, you two! It’s a very pretty ring.” 

Tim was significantly less composed. “What?! Boss I can’t believe you’re actually getting hitched! Who asked who? When’s the wedding? I need to know all the details!” 

Jon chuckled and Martin blushed. “I’m not your boss anymore, Tim.” 

“I know, I know, but it’s weird to call you Jon. Maybe I should call you Jonny boy?” Tim joked. “Anyway, tell me everything!” He insisted, moving so that Sasha was only half in frame and he was no longer on her shoulder. 

Martin recounted most of the day’s events, explaining how they’d walked around the loch and down to the beach where he’d proposed. Jon interjected; “He didn’t just propose, he did a whole speech before hand. It was… It was beautiful.”

“And entirely too full of emotions for your perfect chrome-ness,” Tim joked. “Honestly, you’re such a sap in reality. So, whose stag do is first?” 

“I don’t think either of us is doing a stag do, thank you very much, Tim,” Jon replied. 

“Noooo, you don’t get to cop out of this! This is like, once-in-a-lifetime! Celebrate for once!”

“We’ll be in touch, Tim. Don’t worry, you’ll be kept updated on what the plans are,” Martin promised. 

“Of course, of course. I’ll let you guys get back to your wedding planning!” He cheered. Sasha called out another congratulations, and bye. 

“So, who do we call next? Honestly I don’t know how many I can handle.”

“It’s alright, we can just send everyone else a text?” Martin suggested, running a hand through Jon’s hair. 

“That sounds good. I’ll tell Georgie and Melanie if you tell Basira and Daisy?” He suggested, pulling out his phone. 

“Works for me.” 

Georgie’s reply had almost as much enthusiasm as Tim’s response: ‘Oh my god congrats from the both of us!! Send me pics of the ring and I’ll expect a wedding invitation soon ;)’ Upon receiving a photo of the ring on Jon’s hand, her reply was ‘Its gorgeous, looks good on you!’. 

Basira and Daisy’s were much more subdued, Basira saying: ‘Congratulations, it’s about time :P’ and Daisy adding a simple ‘Congrats guys’. 

After all that, Jon was very much feeling tired of having to interact with people, and despite The Eye pushing him to take a statement, what he really wanted was a nap. Martin, noticing how tired he looked, asked if he wanted to go upstairs and nap whilst Martin made dinner, but Jon’s response was to turn on his side and snuggle into his fiancé, smiling softly to himself when he felt Martin’s arms over him. 

“I can’t make dinner if you nap on me, y’know,” He pointed out, but Jon just murmured something inaudible and closed his eyes, quickly falling asleep. It didn’t take long sat there for Martin to give up and follow suit. 

——

Jon debated taking the ring off when he was getting ready for work the following Monday. Every single one of his students was going to ask, he could just tell, kids were inherently nosy and it’s not like anything interesting happened in the town often. But even when he did think about it, eventually he decided that he wasn’t going to hide his fiancé from anyone, not even the schoolkids. If they asked, he’d answer, and they would all go on with their day.  
So he hoped. 

When he walked into the staffroom that morning, it became immediately obvious it wasn’t just the students he’d have to deal with. 

“Morning! I’ve never seen you wear a ring before, Jon,” Natalie, the art teacher, commented. “Something special happen?” 

“Yes, morning, I uh… got engaged at the weekend,” He answered, putting his satchel down on the seat next to him and pulling out his lesson plans to go over, even if he already Knew them. 

“Oh, congratulations! I didn’t even realise you had a girlfriend.”

“Boyfriend, actually. And now he’s my fiancé,” He corrected, admiring the ring on his finger. 

“Oh, my bad. Didn’t mean to assume,” She apologised. “You’ll have fun with your classes today, then. They’ll all be asking after it.” 

“Yes, I assumed as much,” Jon replied, as the physics teacher, Stephen, walked in. 

“Morning!” He called as he walked in, noticing Jon looking at his ring. “New jewellery, Jon?” 

“He got engaged to his boyfriend at the weekend,” Natalie chimed in, smiling. “Sorry, hope you don’t mind me saying.” 

“No, it’s fine,” Jon assured her, waving his hand in absent dismissal and going back to reviewing his lesson plans. 

“Well congratulations. I assume that’s the blonde haired guy who your students said brought you lunch?” 

“Yes, that’s him. His name is Martin,” He explained, blushing lightly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go set up for my first class,” Jon announced, gathering his things and standing up to shuffle off to his classroom. He hated smalltalk. 

It didn’t take long as his first class shuffled in for one of them to point out the ring. A young man named Nathan. 

“Nice bling, teach,” He muttered as he walked in, and Jon scowled at him. 

“First of all, it is not ‘bling’ it is an engagement ring, and second of all, you call me sir or Mr. Sims. Not ‘teach’,” He corrected, moving to sit at his desk. “I can hear you all muttering, you know. Yes, I said engagement ring. I’ll answer exactly 5 questions between the lot of you,” He stated, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms.

Almost every hand went up. He sighed. 

“Natasha?”

“Is your fiancé the blonde haired guy who came to give you lunch once?”

“Yes. Finley?” 

“What’s his name?”

“Martin. Jack?” 

“What’s the ring made from? It looks cool.”

“Tungsten carbide and black opal. May?”

“How long have you been dating him?”

“Just over two years. Olivia?”

“Who asked who?”

“He asked me. Alright, that’s your lot for questions about my personal life. There’s a starter on the board.” 

The class whined a little at not being allowed any more questions, but got on with the starter with a low level of chatter between students, mostly gossiping about various events. Jon Knew most of them were talking about him, but he didn’t care enough to stop them, as long as they were doing the work whilst he pulled up the register on his laptop.

As expected, most of the classes he had that day, as well as a majority of his coworkers, asked about the ring and congratulated him on the engagement. What he hadn’t expected, was that during his lunch break, when he was running the literature club, where they would discuss various things they had read and occasionally analyse them together. 

Jon stood and walked over to the door, glancing back at his students momentarily. 

“Hey! Sorry, I didn’t realise you’d have students. I brought you some lunch,” Martin said quietly, holding up the tupperware box of food and a thermos. 

“Thank you, Martin,” Jon replied, taking them and setting them on the nearest table before turning back and sweetly kissing him. The students all started muttering, and he sighed and turned back to them. “Yes, _that_ Martin. This is my fiancé. Martin, my students.” 

“Hi!” Martin greeted shyly, giving a little wave and stepping inside when Jon gestured for him to do so, closing the door behind him quietly. 

“So, when’s the wedding?” Natasha, one of Jon’s best students who regularly attended the club, asked. 

Jon spluttered a little, sharing a look with Martin. “We haven’t decided that yet.” 

“Have you decided what you’re gonna wear? I’ve never seen you wear a blazer that wasn’t tweed, but I hope you’re not gonna wear tweed to your wedding, sir.”

“No- I,” Jon stuttered, blushing as he pictured himself in a tuxedo, actually getting married. “I haven’t thought about it yet, no.” 

“Are you okay, Jon?” Martin asked, gentle concern evident in his tone, leaning over to meet him at eye level. “Do you need something?”

“I-I’m perfectly fine, thank you, Martin.”

“Are you sure? You don’t look fine.” He nudged Jon towards his desk, trying to get him to sit down. “Do you need a statement-? Oh, sorry, shouldn’t have- you have students, sorry,” He fretted, glancing back at the table of four. 

“N-no, it’s fine. I’m fine.”

“Alright. Do you want me to go?” He asked, gently putting a hand on Jon’s forearm. 

“No, it’s fine. We were just about to finish up club for the day anyway,” He replied, blushing furiously as he felt the curiosity coming off his students in waves. Martin nodded and sat quietly next to him, the picture of concern until the students had packed away their things, thanked Jon for having them, and shuffled out. Once they had gone, Martin returned to worrying over him. 

The words rush out the moment the door is closed behind the last student. “Are you sure you’re okay? I brought a statement in my bag just in case, if you need it.”

“I’m fine. Just… being asked-” He started, cutting himself off slightly. 

“Is this an Eye thing?” He asked with even more concern. 

“No! No, no, this is… just a me thing. I-.. I hadn’t actually, well… I hadn’t thought about _actually getting married_ , and well, being asked about it, I just-... got flustered,” He replied, stumbling through his explanation. 

“O-oh! Well, I mean…We should probably start to think about that kind of thing, y’know? I mean, there’s no rush at all, we have time. And we kind of need to save up,” Martin pointed out, relief evident in his voice and expression. His hands moved from fretting over Jon to simply holding his. 

“Of course, of course. ...Have you thought about it? What you’re going to wear, I mean?”

“Uh, a little bit? I mean, not super seriously?” Martin replied, running a hand through his hair. “Anyway, eat something,” He demanded as he shoved the tupperware into Jon’s hands. “I worked really hard on it.”

Jon raised an eyebrow in curiosity as he pulled the lid off the tupperware and hummed happily at the smell of fresh toast and melted cheese. “It smells amazing,” he commented, pulling one half of the sandwich and taking a bite, moaning softly. “It tastes even better. This is amazing, thank you,” He muttered, happily munching through the croque monsieur. 

Martin preened at the praise, smiling brightly. “I’m glad! The sauce was awkward but I’m glad it worked out.” Jon hummed some form of agreement through delicious mouthfuls. “Slow down, Jon, you’ll give yourself indigestion.” 

He huffed, agreeing but not happy about it, pausing to take a sip of the tea Martin had brought in the thermos. “I love you,” He said, leaning over to kiss him sweetly. Martin smiles into his lips. “This is amazing.”

“I love you too! I’m glad you like it. I best be getting off, then. Dogs to walk and such.” 

“Of course, of course. Thank you, Martin.” Jon moved the tupperware to his desk from his lap so he could stand up as Martin did, kissing him again. 

“No problem. You know I like cooking for you. But uh… when you get home, do you wanna start planning?”

“Uh, sure. I have no idea where to even start.”

“Don’t worry. Enjoy the rest of your day, and I’ll see you at home, mkay?” Martin replied, kissing him once more before he finally hugged him and left. 

\---

That evening, Jon walked in, hung up his coat, kicked off his shoes and almost immediately was in Martin’s lap with the tv on. 

“So, how was work?” Martin asked, gently running his hands through Jon’s hair, taking the bobble out so he could run his fingers through it properly.

“So many questions,” He complained, letting his eyes slide closed as Martin started playing with his hair. 

“Yeah. Do you want to plan, or do you want to just chill?” He offered. 

“Well, I was thinking about suits, actually.”

“Yeah? You got an idea?” Martin inquired gently, unrelenting with his hands in Jon’s hair, combing it away from Jon’s face with his fingers.

“Mmm. I think I would like to wear a tailcoat? I mean, I’ve always wanted to, and never gotten the opportunity, so. Getting married feels like a good time to do that.”

“Definitely! Like, full three-piece, I assume?” 

“Mhm. Double-breasted waistcoat, though. If I’m going to do it, I want to do it properly.”

“Of course,” He replied with a small chuckle. “Do you want a top hat and cane too?”  
“No, no, I think I would find them annoying to carry around all day.”

“Fair enough. Have you considered what colour? Traditional black and white or something else?” 

“I’m not sure. I don’t know what would look good on me?”

“Well, I think anything looks good on you, as long as you like what you’re wearing,” He mused, redoing Jon’s braid as they talked. 

“Well, do you know what you want to wear?” Jon looks back a little, and Martin gently adjusts his head.

“I’m thinking three piece as well. But I prefer single-breasted waistcoats.”

“Mhm. What colour do you want?”

“I dunno. Light grey or maybe light blue, I think?”

“Light blue would look nice on you,” Jon muttered. “It’d look weird on me, though, I think. Maybe I should go with dark grey?”

“That would look nice on you. Y’know I always liked the idea of having like, mirrored colour? So if I wear light blue and a grey tie, you would wear a grey suit and a light blue tie?” Martin suggested.

“That sounds nice. Light blue and grey would be a colour scheme, then?”

“If you’d like. I think it’s a nice combination.” He squeezed Jon’s shoulder.

“I agree, it is nice. And you look nice in blue.”

“Alright, well, did you want to start looking at suits? Do you want to buy them or rent them?”

“Buy them. I definitely want to be able to keep them,” Jon replied, sitting up a little as Martin finished an overly complex braid. 

“Yeah. We’ll have to save up a little longer though, depending on how expensive they are.”

“Of course, but I don’t mind,” He replied, and glanced at his ring. “I would spend forever waiting for you.” 

“Jon…” Martin said his name with so much love it made his heart flutter. “You’re so soft when you want to be, you know that?”

“I… I’m not soft…” He grumbled in response, moving to bury his face in Martin’s chest. 

“Mhm. I’ll believe that when I see it.” Martin settles a gentle hand in his hair, enjoying the moment of silent connection. “Anyway, hungry? I was thinking bangers and mash for dinner?” He asked with a soft smile. 

“Sounds wonderful. I think I might try and take a nap in the meantime.”

“Sounds like a plan. You get some rest, I’ll make a start and wake you up when it’s ready.”

“Thank you, Martin,” Jon replied, kissing his fiance sweetly before going to lie down, burying his face in Martin’s pillow and smiling to himself. He was actually going to get married, to the love of his life, the sweetest man in the world!

——

Over the course of the week, they would spend idle moments together looking through suits on various websites—their options were rather limited by the fact they lived almost in the Scottish highlands, but they were pleasantly surprised to learn there was a shop in the next town over that dealt in wedding attire. They made a plan that the following weekend they would go there to see if they had any suits that were what they were looking for. Martin also pointed out that if they were having Tim and Sasha as best man and head grooms-maid (which they were still not sure made any sense, but they went with it anyway), they would probably want to pick out at least a vague idea of an outfit for each of them. 

When they realised that neither of them were particularly fashionable, though, they ended up on a video call with Tim and Sasha to discuss them coming over to help. 

“What’s up, lovebirds?” Tim asked as he answered. It was clear he was laid in Sasha’s lap. 

“Hi, Tim! So, we’ve started planning,” Martin explained, glancing over at Jon who was cuddled up against him. “And we decided to start with outfits. We have ideas for what we want to wear, but… well, we want you guys to be best man and head grooms-maid,” He continued, arm resting around Jon’s waist. 

“Hell yeah! I’m honoured, man,” Tim replied, grinning brightly. 

“We wanted to know if you two could come and help us find outfits for you two. We’d like to coordinate them, but we don’t know what you both are comfortable wearing,” Jon interjected, to cut to the chase. 

“Of course!” Tim said after a short scoff, “when do you want us? What’s the colour scheme? Please don’t say green. Can I wear a Hawaiian shirt?” 

They laughed softly. “No, no, it’s blue and grey,” Martin replied. “We’re going to have matching-but-inverse suits, so one of you will match Jon and one of you will match me.” 

“Dibs on Jon,” Sasha remarked. “No offense, Martin, but I feel like our fashion senses align better.” 

“Of course, none taken.” 

“Fine with me, I look good in blue anyway. Brings out my eyes~” Tim replied dramatically, batting his eyelashes. “So, when do you want us?” 

“When are you free?” Jon asked. 

“Not this weekend, but the next weekend,” Sasha replied. “I have reports to finish this weekend.” 

“Alright. We can come pick you up from the train station,” Jon continued. “If you let us know what time you’ll get here.” 

“Sure thing! I’ll look at train tickets. How long do you want us for? Obviously you never want us to leave but if you _had_ to set an end date...” Tim asked, glancing over at whatever it was Sasha was doing. From Tim’s indignant expression, anyone could gather she rolled her eyes at him.

“I don’t know how long it’ll take, but do you think you could get here Friday evening? That way we’ll have all of Saturday,” Martin suggested. 

“Should do, if Sash gets home on time. It’ll probably be late by the time we get there, though.” 

“That’s fine. Jon doesn’t get home until late most days anyway,” Martin replied, smiling softly at his fiancé. 

“Alright, that’s a plan then. See you next Friday!” 

“See you soon!” Martin mimicked as he ended the call. “We’ll still go this weekend, just us, so we can look for suits for us, yeah?”

“Yeah. Sounds good,” Jon replied, taking his hand and squeezing it. 

——

That weekend, Jon drove them to the next town over. Martin had called ahead the previous day, so they were expected, but Jon was still incredibly nervous. He wasn’t a fashionable person at all, and the kinds of people who worked in these places usually were. 

“It’ll be fine, Jon. Don’t look so worried,” Martin told him, reaching over to put a hand on his knee, rubbing it with reassurance. 

“I-I know…”

“Besides, I’ll be right there with you.” 

“I know,” He replied, tapping his fingers against the wheel as they pulled into the car park of the relatively small shop decorated in white and pastel grey. 

“Ready?” Martin asked, reaching over to take his hand and squeeze it reassuringly.

“Yeah. Let’s go look at wedding suits,” Jon replied, already blushing lightly. They climbed out of the car and walked into the shop hand in hand, and as soon as they walked in were greeted by a young lady with long brown hair, wearing a blouse and pencil skirt. 

“Hi there! Welcome to Blush Boutique. Do you guys have a consultation?” 

“Uh, Yeah. Martin Blackwood? And this is my fiancé, Jon.” 

“Hello,” Jon awkwardly replied, holding tightly onto Martin’s hand and nervously glancing around the shop. 

“Of course. If you guys want to start browsing, feel free, I’ll get one of our assistants for you.” 

Martin nodded and pulled Jon over to the rows of suits with him, starting to rifle through a lot of black tuxes. Eventually, Jon was brought a little more to his senses and joined him in looking through them, although it wasn’t long until they weren’t alone again. A man that looked about their age, with dark skin and black hair introduced himself as Antonio. 

“So, what do you guys have ideas of what you’re after?” He asked with a smile. 

“Uh, yeah,” Martin replied, explaining their ideas and what they’d already looked at and decided they liked, gesturing with the hand that wasn’t holding Jon’s, who remained quiet and fidgety. 

“Oh, I like it! Grey and blue is a very vogue colour scheme right now. We have a lot of options for grey, not as many for light blue, but I’m certain we can find you something. Are we thinking traditional tux, two-piece, three-piece?” He asked as he walked over and joined them in looking at grey suits. 

“Uh, three-piece. I was thinking tailcoat, as well,” Jon muttered, glancing at Martin for reassurance. Martin nods with a smile.

“Oh, I love that for you! A tailcoat would totally work on your figure,” Antonio complimented, pulling a few options off the rail. “So, if we start by looking at jackets specifically, cause we can mix the waistcoat if it isn’t your vibe—now, most tailcoats have peak lapels, but we do have this one that’s got a wide notch lapel if that’s more your style. Single or double-breasted on the coat? Most are double breasted, but left unbuttoned.” 

“I- uh. I prefer the peak lapel, and leaving it unbuttoned is fine, I want a double-breasted waistcoat, so I’d like that to be shown off somewhat.” 

“I like the style, I like it. Do you know your sizes, or do you want to get measured up and we can have you try some on?” 

“I uh, I know them,” He replied, glancing at Martin. “Do you want me to write them down, or…?” 

“That’d be super helpful. And if you know your fiancé’s, those would be super helpful too,” He replied, pulling a pen out of his breast pocket and dipping behind the counter to pull out a notebook and hand them to Jon for him to write them down. Then, he turned and went to pull over an empty rack that was on wheels, hanging up options he thought Jon might like. They went through them and narrowed them down, looking at jackets first. They ended up with 4 options they all liked, and Antonio took Jon’s piece of paper with measurements on and went to find the jackets in their right sizes.

When he came back, he looked less than pleased. “Alright, so, you have pretty narrow shoulders. So I got a jacket that will fit your waist and might be wide on the shoulders, and one that’ll fit your shoulders and might be kind of small at the waist in each of the options. Here, try this one first,” Antonio instructed, handing over a dark grey marl jacket. Martin gave a supportive smile. 

Jon disappeared into the fitting room, pulling his jumper off and tucking his shirt in before he slipped the jacket off the hanger and tried it on. Antonio was right - these jackets were definitely tailored for someone with much more of a traditionally masculine figure. At least the sleeves were the right length, He thought to himself as he stepped out to show Martin and Antonio, who prompted them both for thoughts. 

“I like it, though you’re definitely right about the cut,” Jon commented. “The fabric is nice, I’m a fan of the marl. It’s nice to have some variation in the colour, especially when it’s monotone and kind of dark.”

Antonio nodded and hummed. “You seem to know your stuff. So, Martin, what do you think?” 

Martin blushed as he looked at Jon, wearing a tailcoat. “I-I think it looks really nice. I mean, we should try the others, too, but I really like it. I like you in anything though.” 

“That’s sweet, but not making deciding any easier,” Jon replied, carefully shrugging off the jacket and pulling on the next - similar, but with a contrasting black satin lapel and a slightly flared sleeve. 

“I’m not sure about the flared sleeves, I’ll be honest,” Jon stated as he turned to show them. “But I like the contrast lapel.” 

“Oooh, I agree, the contrast does look really nice on you. If we could match that to a waistcoat I think that would look pretty nice,” Antonio commented, walking up and adjusting the sleeves for him. “But yeah, flared sleeves are definitely too phantom of the opera.” 

Martin agreed, still sat with a blush on his cheeks, and Antonio handed Jon the next jacket.

The third option was a slightly lighter grey than the previous ones, with a more subtle variation to the fabric, again with the contrast lapel but only a single button whereas the other had 6. 

“I think this is my favourite so far,” Jon commented, adjusting it to try and get it to sit properly on his narrow frame but to no avail. “Definitely going to need it to be tailored, though.” Martin chuckled softly, eyes tracing the angular lines of Jon’s shoulders for a moment before he caught himself and they darted to stare at his own hands in his lap.

Antonio nodded. “Oh yeah, we can sort that for you, for sure,” He assured him, hands dancing over Jon to carefully adjust the jacket. “Penny for your thoughts, Martin?” 

Martin jolts, pulled out of his self-indulgent daydreams. “I-I love it! I agree. I mean, they all look good. But yeah, no, I like this one,” He stuttered, blushing brighter as he was directly addressed and fumbling his words. 

“I think we’re all in agreement, then. This is the one,” Jon stated, smiling at his bashful fiancé.

“Perfect~! Alrighty, I’ll set that one aside for you, and we can either look for the rest of your outfit - the jacket does have matching trousers, but no waistcoat - or we can start looking for Martin,” Antonio prompted, returning the first, second and fourth (which they had retroactively decided was far less interesting than the others, being plain grey fabric instead of marl) to their proper rails. 

“Let’s finish Jon’s outfit before we start on mine,” Martin quickly interjected. “I mean, I don’t mind waiting a while longer to find mine.” 

Jon gives him a knowing look, raising one eyebrow. Martin pouts. 

“Alrighty, let’s get to looking at waistcoats, then! So, I know we said double-breasted, and with this jacket I’d say that definitely works. Generally, because you have the peak lapel on the jacket, I’d suggest a shawl lapel on the waistcoat, even if that’s a wide one. Of course, you don’t have to have a lapel on it at all if you want the focus on your jacket instead. But, I kind of gather the waistcoat is the focal point here,” Antonio rambled, already grabbing a handful of waistcoats and putting them on the rail behind himself. Jon started to look through them, frowning and immediately returning some to their original rail. 

Martin was too busy daydreaming again to really contribute unless prompted. Jon noticed this, and teased him by stopping to unbutton his shirt’s cuffs and roll his sleeves up. After some brief deliberation, they ended up with 5 options. 

The first was a black satin waistcoat with a straight shawl lapel and 6 silver buttons. Jon slipped it on and buttoned it carefully, tugging at the hem and brushing brightly as Antonio adjusted the cinch for him. He grinned as he felt Martin seethe with jealousy, stopping to kiss him teasingly as he walked over to get his jacket so they could be seen together. 

As soon as Antonio saw the jacket added, he shook his head. “You said you were going for a grey and blue scheme? Yeah, too much black on your top half.” 

Martin nodded, standing up to pick up one of the waistcoats. “I think you should try this one next,” He said, holding out to Jon as he shrugged the jacket off again. 

“Yeah? Alright,” He replied, taking it and hanging it up next to him. This one was the same grey marl as his jacket, with a wider swept shawl lapel, black satin-covered buttons and a W shaped hem. When Jon saw himself in the mirror, he hummed appreciatively. “This one does look nice. I think I prefer the straight edge to the lapel, but I like it.” 

“I think we have one that does have a straight edge, but it’s a flat hem and not a W,” Antonio called, rifling through the rails again and finding they’d already set it aside. “Oop, we already pulled it out! Convenient,” He commented, carrying it over. 

Jon quickly changed into it, and ended up getting the lapel twisted under the jacket, but before he could fix it himself, Martin’s hands were on him, gently untwisting it and smoothing it over. “I like this one, too,” He murmured, even though his eyes had barely moved from staring at Jon’s soft blush. 

“You two are adorable~” Antonio cooed. “Let me see that waistcoat, though.” 

Jon chuckled and kissed Martin before he stepped away to show it off. “Oh, yeah, I like this one. Martin, you have excellent taste,” He commented, winking at him. “Do we want to try other options or are we set on this one?” He asked.

“Thanks. I mean, Jon would make them all look good, but this one caught my eye,” Martin explained.

“I want to try the other grey one we pulled out - the one without a lapel. I don’t think I’ll like it as much, but just to see.” 

“Of course,” Antonio replied, gliding across the room to fetch it for him. 

Jon was right in his assumption that he wouldn’t like it as much, but was still glad to have tried it on. He didn’t want to make any rash decisions with this. He tried on the one Martin had originally picked again, and when prompted by Antonio, voiced his thoughts. 

“Well, I prefer the straight edge on the lapel, but I also prefer the pointed hem. I’m trying to decide which I want more.” 

“Do you want to try it with the trousers and a belt to see if that influences you?” Antonio suggested. 

“Sure,” He replied, and whilst Antonio once again disappeared into the back room, he took the opportunity to kiss Martin for a lingering moment. “You’re being awfully quiet, dear.”

“Yeah, I know you know why,” He replied, pouting again and pulling him into a loose hug. Jon rested his hand on his shoulder and arm. 

“I can take a pretty good guess, unless you want me to Know?” He teased.

“I think you already know exactly what I’m thinking, Jon. Well, that, and I don’t want to influence your decisions too much. It’s our day, not just mine, and you should wear what you like best.” 

Jon hummed in quiet agreement, kissing him again one more time before Antonio returned and he disappeared into the fitting room to change into the whole ensemble, first with Martin’s original choice. When he stepped out, he was pulling a little at the hem of the waistcoat. “I think I’m going to go with the other one,” He stated. “The points are nice, but they feel like they’d get on my nerves eventually.” 

Antonio nodded. “Yeah, you don’t want that - you’re gonna be wearing this for a good while, so it’s gotta be comfy. Alright, let’s see the other one with the whole ensemble.” 

“Almost the whole ensemble. We still need to find a cravat or tie or something,” Martin added, sitting back down and waiting for Jon to reappear. When he did, it was to the approval of both Martin and Antonio. 

“You look gorgeous, Jon,” Martin said, voice full of adoration. 

“I agree! Seems like we’re all settled on Jon’s outfit for now then. So, Jon, whilst you change back, me and Martin will start looking at the light blue suits?” He said, his voice raising at the end to make it a question. 

“Sounds like a plan to me,” Jon replied, smiling at Martin and going back into the fitting rooms to change back into his own trousers and pull his jumper back on over his shirt.  
“Alright, yeah. We can start having a look,” Martin replied, finally starting to be pulled out of his daydreams about his fiance as he stood up and followed Antonio over to the smaller selection they had of light blue suits. 

“So, describe the vision to me,” Antonio prompted, dramatically gesturing with his hand as he started to muse over the various shades of blue. 

“Well, like Jon, I like the textured fabric rather than the plain ones. Uh, I like single breasted waistcoats, and I’m definitely more of a.. Normal suit jacket kind of guy.” 

Antonio nodded. “Well, like Jon, let’s start with jackets, yeah?” He suggested, starting to pull a couple ideas from the rail. Martin nodded, smiling over his shoulder at Jon when he approached, resting his arm around his waist for a beat before he joined Antonio in looking through the jackets. 

Martin proved more difficult to find things for, mostly because he wasn’t as picky as Jon. They ended up with 9 choices at first, which Jon helped them whittle down to 3 jackets to try on. Antonio happily went to fetch them in the correct sizes. 

The first was a single button jacket in a desaturated light blue marl, with a narrow notch lapel. Martin took it into the fitting room so he could pull his jumper off and try it on over just the t-shirt he was wearing underneath. He appraised it momentarily. _This is really happening,_ He thought to himself, almost panicking for a moment but catching himself and taking a deep breath; _this is really happening, and that is a good thing_. It fit pretty well, even though it was slightly long in the body, and he swished back the curtain to show it off. 

“Ooh! So, what are we thinking?” Antonio prompted, glancing between the couple with an encouraging smile. Jon had no idea how he was so energetic so consistently. He approached Martin to get a better look, and smiled at him encouragingly.

“It’s nice, but I think the lapel is too narrow,” He commented, tucking his hair behind his ear as he tilted his head slightly. 

“Yeah, I like it but I think only having one button isn’t very flattering on me…” Martin replied, looking down at himself and grimacing slightly. Jon patted his cheek gently. 

“Stop that.” Their eyes meet for a quiet moment.

“Alright, it’s a solid maybe. Let’s try the next one,” Antonio judged, breaking the brief silence, pulling their next option off the rack and handing it to Martin. He happily shed the first and donned it whilst the first option was returned to a hanger and put aside. “Thoughts on this one?” He prompted again.

This one was slightly brighter, pastel blue that had a more subtle variation in the fabric, with a wide notch lapel and two white buttons. 

“I like this one much more. The brighter blue is nice, too,” Martin commented, running his hands over the front of it to smooth it down a little.

“I like the white buttons, it’ll make a nice contrast with the black on my jacket,” Jon chimed in, adjusting the collar and letting his hands linger on his fiance’s shoulders. “And I agree, the brighter colour definitely suits you better.” 

“Was that a pun?” Martin asked with a soft laugh. It took Jon a moment to realise the unintentional pun, but when he did he chuckled along with him. 

“It was unintentional. Do you still want to try on the other one?” 

“Hm… I’ll give it a try. I do like this one a lot, though,” Martin replied, shrugging off the jacket and thanking Antonio when he handed him the third and final option. It was a slightly colder shade of blue, with a shawl lapel and two black buttons. As he was buttoning it, Martin was sure. “It’s nice, but… definitely the other one.” 

“I agree,” Jon chimed in, readjusting the bobby pin in his hair that had been slowly failing in keeping the stray hairs out of his eyes. “The other one is a nicer colour.” Martin’s eyes followed Jon’s hands as they fixed his hair, smiling. Jon smirked.

“Alright, sounds like we’re decided there, then! So, there are actually a few matching waistcoats for the jacket, one has a narrow shawl lapel and the other doesn’t have a lapel at all, but obviously you don’t have to have a matching one; We could got for white to pick out the buttons on the jacket, for example,” Antonio rambled, already leafing through the rail of waistcoats to find the two matching waistcoats, as well as several in white satin. 

Jon gave occasional comments as he watched the pair sort through several waistcoats, but in the end they were left with the two that matched the jacket. It didn’t take long for Martin to decide he preferred the one with the lapel over the one without. When he tried it on alongside his jacket, Jon’s smug smile was wiped from his face. He blushed at the realisation that this was what Martin was actually going to wear to their wedding. They were actually getting married, and Martin would be wearing that suit when they did. Telling Jon they would spend the rest of their life together, holding him, holding his hand, putting a ring on his finger…

“You look beautiful.” He spoke reverently, a deep blush on his cheeks as he took Martin’s hands in his and kissed his knuckles. “I love you.” Jon looked up at Martin with unusually bright eyes.

“I love you, too, Jon,” Martin replied with a happy hum, blushing just as brightly. 

Antonio let them have a moment whilst he started to tidy up, and once it seemed appropriate, chimed in. “Well, seems like there’s just finishing touches to decide, then.” 

“Oh, yeah,” Martin replied, finally managing to pull his eyes away from Jon. “Didn’t you say something about a cravat, Jon?”

“Oooo, a man of sophistication! I like it.” Jon rolls his eyes playfully at Martin. “Are we thinking traditional, scrunch, ascot?” He questioned, and Jon frowned as he realised he had no idea what any of that really meant. He looked to Martin as he debated trying to Know, and Martin gave him a very amused look in return. Antonio paused and turned back to them from where he’d been rifling through cravats. “Not sure, then?” 

“Uh, no, I didn’t have a solid idea in mind,” Jon replied honestly, after shooting a look at Martin for being unhelpful. 

“That’s alright! We have a surprisingly good amount of options. So, something in light blue to match Martin… probably not a pattern, then,” He mused aloud.

“No, probably not,” Martin chimed in to agree, nudging Jon as he pulled him along to go and look. 

“Oh, let’s try this one!” He chirped, pulling out a pale blue silk cravat with a flourish, holding it up to Jon. “May I?” 

“Uh, sure,” Jon replied, looking over at Martin as he let Antonio tie the cravat around his neck. When he was done, he held up a small mirror for Jon to look at it in. “Oh, I like it,” He commented, running his fingers over the fabric and adjusting it slightly. 

“Well, let’s not settle for the first one we’ve seen, hm? Let’s try a handful more options. Now, I know we agreed not to do patterns, but this one has a beautiful subtle paisley to it I think you’ll really like.” 

Their discussion continued, with Jon trying desperately to keep up with Antonio’s jargon without Knowing too much. Martin looked perfectly smug, and was relatively quick in choosing a nice wide grey tie with a subtle checked pattern. Jon took slightly longer, but settled on a plain, pale blue silk cravat. Antonio happily gathered their things, made some notes about various pieces of tailoring they needed to get done, and was gone. They both cringed at the price of it all, but it was put onto Jon’s credit card to make it more manageable, which in the long run would make things easier, if slightly more expensive than paying upfront. Not that they would ever be able to afford all this upfront, anyway. 

It doesn’t matter, they’re getting married. They’re generally frugal. _It’ll be fine_.

They left the shop hand in hand, and as soon as they were in the car, Jon sagged into the seat and groaned with relief. Eyes began to appear along his arms and across his face, all bright green and staring. 

“Jon? Are you okay?” Martin asked worriedly, turning to face him with one hand on his knee and the other resting against his cheek. 

“Fine, I’m fine. Just… do you have any idea how tiring it is trying to Know things without focusing too hard, or letting extra eyes appear? It’s like trying to eat with your hands tied behind your back whilst holding your breath. Not impossible, but bloody hard work!” 

Martin took a moment, then laughed softly. “You idiot. You don’t have to pretend to know things Jon. You are allowed to say you don’t know.” 

“I know, I know… but I felt like I’d established some kind of expectation,” He explained, grumbling and closing his normal eyes for a moment and relaxing. “Stop smirking, Martin.” 

The eyes elsewhere on Jon’s body blink in sync, returning Martin's affectionate gaze.

“Do you want me to drive? You look exhausted,” Martin offered, still looking concerned. 

“Hm? Oh, no, no I’m fine. Just needed a moment,” Jon said, sitting up and taking a deep breath to focus on hiding at least some of the eyes again before he started the car. 

“We’ll get you a statement when we get home,” Martin promised, kissing Jon’s hair before sitting back into his seat and putting his seatbelt on. 

“Sounds good.”


	3. Shopping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim and Sasha come to visit and find their outfits. Tim surprises everyone, and a new kid learns the rumours around their english teacher.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to the wonderful Kaz for helping with the characterisation of Tim immensely - I could not have done this without them! Also, thank you to the Rusty Quill discord once more for inspiration and ideas.

The following weekend, on Friday evening, instead of going home Jon drove straight from work to the train station to pick up Tim and Sasha. The couple were each pulling a suitcase behind them - Sasha’s a sensible, plain black, Tim’s a garish Hawaiian print that clashed with his equally gaudy Hawaiian shirt.

“Jonny boy!” Tim cheered upon spotting Jon from across the station, taking Sasha’s wrist in one hand and his suitcase in the other to run over to meet him. 

“Hi, Jon,” Sasha chimed in, freeing her wrist and walking over of her own accord.

“Tim, Sasha,” Jon greeted, hands in his pockets and nodding greetings at them. Tim hovered with his arms poised for a hug, raising one eyebrow for permission. “If you must.” 

He grinned and hugged him briefly but tightly. “It’s so good to see you again, boss. Where’s the good old-fashioned lover boy?” He raises a cheeky eyebrow.

“Martin’s at home - I drove here from work,” Jon explained. “It’s good to see you both as well.” 

“So, let me see the ring in person~” Sasha said with a coy smile. Jon blushed lightly and pulled his hand out of his pocket, holding it up to show them briefly before shoving his hand back into his pocket. “Oh, it’s beautiful!” 

“I just can’t believe it’s taken you two this long! I was like, 100% certain you were eloping when you guys left,” Tim commented. “C’mon, I can’t wait to see you two being domestic so I can take pictures for blackmail.” 

Jon rolled his eyes. “I don’t know how you continue to put up with him, Sasha.”

“Neither do I, Jon,” She replied with a soft laugh, taking Tim’s hand to hold as they followed Jon out of the train station and back to his car. The drive back up to the house wasn’t that long, but with Tim’s insistence on being DJ and also singing along to everything, for Jon it seemed longer than usual. Especially when Tim insisted on playing ‘Good Old-fashioned Lover Boy’ and singing egregiously loudly in Jon’s ear. There were brief respites in which Sasha would ask questions about their plans, Jon’s work, and everything else they had to catch up on. Eventually, they pulled up outside their house on the hill, and Martin opened the front door to greet them. 

Tim jumped out of the car and ran over to hug him. “What’s cookin, good lookin’? It’s so good to see you!”

Martin blushed and slightly awkwardly returned the hug, looking at Jon in abject horror. Jon sighed as if to express, _yes, I understand completely_ “It’s good to see you too, Tim. Hi Sasha!” 

“Hi, Martin. Oh, who’s this beautiful man?” Sasha asked, kneeling down as Hudson appeared at Martin’s feet. 

“Oh! This is Hudson! He’s really friendly,” Martin replied, smiling as Sasha cooed and fussed over him, and Hudson lapped up the attention. She gave a delighted little noise when he rolled onto his back, gently petting his tummy. 

“That’s Sergeant Corporal Hudson, to you,” Jon interjected as he approached, kissing Martin’s cheek. 

“Welcome home, Jon. Let’s get everyone inside and I’ll make some tea, yeah?” He suggested, blushing from the kiss and returning the favour before turning towards the kitchen. 

“I’ll help,” Sasha offered, standing up with a smile.

Tim had already been dragging their suitcases out of the boot of the car after greeting Martin, so Sasha joined Martin in the kitchen whilst Jon dropped his work bag and helped Tim find a good place to put the cases - which temporarily ended up as the corner of the living room by the door. They regrouped on the sofa, which was a little bit of a squeeze with four of them, but none of them minded. Jon was at one end, happily nestled between the arm of the sofa and Martin’s side, whilst Tim sat in the middle with his arms draped around Martin and Sasha’s shoulders. 

“This is great! The gang all back together again,” Tim cheered, grinning ear to ear. 

“It is nice to have us all in the same room,” Jon commented, sipping his tea and staring into it wistfully. 

“It’s gonna be just like old times!”

“So, what have you got planned so far? Jon was pretty bad at explaining, in the short breaks between Tim’s songs,” Sasha enquired, leaning forward to look past Tim to the couple. Martin chuckles, smirking at Jon.

“Honestly not much. We have a colour scheme, and we bought our suits last weekend, since that was what we had the most ideas about,” Martin explained.

“Any ideas for venue?” She continued.

“Not really,” Martin admitted, looking down at Jon with slight apprehension. 

“Vegas wedding!” Tim cheered, pumping a fist into the air. Sasha grabbed his arm and pulled it down with a fond sigh.

“We can’t afford Vegas, Tim, not that we would want to go,” Jon pointed out. Martin laughed a little. 

“Yeah, no, definitely not Vegas.”

“I get the feeling neither of you are church wedding types, either,” Sasha commented, trying to reign the conversation back into normality. 

“Not really, no. Neither of us are particularly religious,” Jon replied. Martin shuddered, squeezing Jon’s hand.

“Hmm… are there any old manor houses or castles around here?” She asked. “Or, if you’re into an outdoor wedding, maybe near a loch or in the woods?” 

“Well, there is Skene House, but I’d hardly call it a manor.” 

“I thought you liked Skene?” Martin questioned, looking down at Jon. 

“I do, but it’s still not that big.” 

“Yeah, but it doesn’t need to be very big, does it? I mean… it’s not like we’re going to have an overabundance of guests,” Martin pointed out. 

“If you want an overabundance of guests I can make some calls,” Tim offered with a cheeky grin. Sasha slapped his arm gently. 

“It could be worth looking into,” She suggested. Then Jon had an idea. 

“Oh, actually, it does have a really nice library that’s connected to the dining room.” 

“Of course you’d want to get married surrounded by dusty books,” Tim joked. 

“The library could be really nice, actually. It has that big fireplace at the end, doesn’t it?” Martin replied, and Jon nodded. Sasha gave a little clap. 

“Sounds like you’ve got a venue pretty sorted to me.” Her attention was immediately diverted, however, when Hudson jumped into her lap and almost spilled her tea by nudging her hand. He meowed loudly for attention. “Oh hello again precious boy!” 

They continued to talk and joke for the evening, until it was decided that everyone should head to bed, since they were all going to be up early in the morning. Martin had already made up the spare room for Tim and Sasha whilst waiting for them to get there, so everyone was able to head straight to bed. Much to Sasha’s disappointment, Hudson took his usual spot on Martin’s side of the bed, kneading the duvet.

—

The next morning, they were all up early. Martin made tea and coffee for everyone, Hudson screamed for attention and food from the moment he sensed movement until Jon fed him. Sasha insisted on making them all a cooked breakfast — since Tim refused to eat anything other than eggy bread for breakfast, she figured she might as well do enough for everyone. 

After breakfast, and Sasha’s extended goodbyes to Hudson (who had persuaded her to give him some bacon earlier), they all got into the car.Jon drove; Tim resigned himself with much faux indignance to the backseat so that Martin could sit with his fiancé. This meant that the music was played at a normal volume, and conversation could be properly held. 

“So, you said you guys have already bought suits, right?” Sasha asked. 

“Yeah! Mine’s light blue and white, Jon’s is grey and black. Jon has a tailcoat,” Martin replied, speaking with fondness. He rubbed the back of Jon’s hand.

“Of course he does,” Tim replied, rolling his eyes slightly. “So I’m in blue, I can vibe with that.” 

“I’m still not decided between a suit of my own, or just a nice formal dress.” 

“Well, you can always try on both when we get there, and decide,” Martin pointed out, shooting a smile into the back row. 

“Yeah. I have an idea for the kind of dress I would wear, I think.” Sasha looked out the window thoughtfully.

“If Sash doesn’t wear a dress, does that mean I get to wear a mini dress to the after party?” His million dollar smile was audible.

“Tim, if you want to wear a mini dress, do it anyway?” Sasha’s sigh indicated this is a regular occurrence.

“Well… I don’t know.. I wouldn’t want to upstage the grooms” Sasha nudged him with a disproving but amused chuckle. “OH! I’ll wear one to the stag do!” He cheered.

“Oh god…” The rest of them groaned.

\---

Upon arrival, the crew had only a brief wait before they were greeted by Antonio. Tim’s face lit up like a child on Christmas, which was then swiftly mirrored by the assistant. 

“Antonio?!”

“Tim?!”

“You two know each other?” Martin questioned, raising an eyebrow. Jon’s incredibly confused expression quickly turning to one of horror. Meanwhile, Tim and Antonio were embracing and complimenting each other’s outfits, saying how good the other looked and how long it had been. None of the others really wanted to follow the conversation - although Jon was given little choice - but by Tim’s winks and Antonio’s blush, the flirting was obvious. 

“Okay, okay, okay,” Tim started, turning back to the group, hushing a buzz of imaginary questions. “So, me and Antonio met in uni. I had a boyfriend studying fashion, so we ran into each other a lot, and then when I broke up with him me and Antonio kind of had a thing for a bit.” Tim leaned on his shoulder, motioning between them.

“We had a one night stand when we were both drunk, but we stayed friends.” He hit the back of his hand on Tim’s chest. “Where have you been? Oh my god, we need to catch up!” Antonio continued. 

“Oh of course, babycakes~” 

“But we are here to shop,” Sasha reminded him, rolling her eyes. 

“Of course! So, what are the ideas?” Antonio asked Jon and Martin. 

“Uh… Well, we’re happy to let Tim explain. You two seem to get on well,” Jon replied awkwardly, desperate to avoid digging himself into a hole of having to Know again. 

“It’s okay, you can say you like hearing my voice~” He teased, winking. “So, I’m coordinating with Martin in blue and Sash is in grey with Jonny boy. I would go more dramatic, but I don’t wanna upstage them. Sash hasn’t decided on a suit or a like, conservative dress.” 

“I think I’m leaning more towards dress,” Sasha replied. “But, floor length and with sleeves.” 

“Sure! Did you want me to fetch one of my co-workers, or are you okay with me?” 

“I’m more than okay with you.” Tim made a teasing little tiger growl and a claw motion with his hand. Sasha slapped his arm. 

“Alrighty then! Who wants to go first?” Antonio chirped, unperturbed.

“Let’s do Tim’s suit first,” Jon said quickly, wanting to avoid having to discuss his own.

“Hell yeah! Ok, so, I still hate boring clothes, so I’m not wearing anything that’s boring or plain. You know like what my ex - Tyler - wore to classes? Not that. Like, the opposite of that.” Sasha snorted at his incredibly specific analogy and dramatics. 

“Okay, so not plain, but not upstaging. A subtle pattern then? Pinstripe, check, paisley?” Antonio suggested, thinking out loud and gesturing with his hand vaguely. 

“Oh… paisley I think,” Tim decided, following Antonio over to the rack of suit jackets, shuffling through them with a musing look. Jon, Martin, and Sasha took a seat behind him, ready to help decide. “Oh! Antonio, do you think you could get our lovebirds’ suits for reference? I wouldn’t want to pick anything that’s gonna clash.” 

“Oh! They aren’t back from tailoring yet, but I can get the display versions,” He replied, gesturing briefly to indicate he would need a moment to fetch them. Tim continued to browse, pulling out a few options that caught his eye. Jon immediately shook his head whenever Tim showed a flashier jacket, rubbing his forehead to soothe an imaginary headache at his temples. Martin chuckled. Antonio returned, and hung the suits up out of the way but clearly visible for them to reference. Jon and Martin share a look.

“Let me see what you’ve chosen, Timothy,” He mused as he perused Tim’s choices. He snickered a little. “You know, you always did have the gaudiest sense of fashion, it’ll be nice to see you dress understated for once.” 

“Hawaiian shirts aren’t _gaudy_ they’re _statement pieces_!” He defended, mockingly aghast with a hand on his chest. 

“Whatever you say, honey,” Sasha smiled. Her and Antonio shared a solemn nod as brothers in arms. 

“Let’s get you into one of these jackets,” Antonio replied, picking one up with a white paisley pattern , slipping it off the hanger and handing it to Tim. He pulled it on and admired himself in the mirror, twirling to show the others and posing slightly. 

“So, thoughts?” Tim prompted, shifting pose. 

“I thought you were being subtle?” Sasha questioned. 

“This is subtle!” He defended indignantly. 

“Could definitely be more subtle,” She countered, looking doubtful. 

“Ok, ok, fine, let’s try a different one,” He conceded, shrugging it off and switching to one in a slightly darker blue, with a more subtle silk paisley pattern. 

“Oh, I love the difference in textures on this one,” Antonio chimed in, nodding approvingly. 

“I like it,” Jon offered, though he was preoccupied with holding Martin’s hand. 

“Tim, are you sure you don’t want to try like, a normal suit, and just wear a funky tie?” Sasha offered. Tim pondered it for a moment, pouting and then looking to Antonio with an inquiring expression. 

“We can always try it,” Antonio replied. “We have a nice herringbone linen that might work for you.” 

Tim hummed. “Alright, let’s give it a try,” He decided, shrugging the jacket off but setting aside as a possibility. Antonio brought over the jacket he’d talked about, along with a blue and white paisley wide tie. The jacket had 1 white button, and a peak lapel, with 3 small decorative buttons up the cuff. 

Tim put the tie on first, and let Antonio help him into the jacket, admiring himself in the mirror for a while. “Okay, I can vibe with this… it’s a little plain, but I like it.” 

“Oh! I have just the thing,” Antonio said, disappearing for a brief moment and returning to stuff something into Tim’s top pocket. When he stepped back again, he had a matching pocket square. 

“Y’know, you’re right, I do like this more,” Tim commented, admiring himself more and posing. “What do you think, guys?” 

“I think it looks nice! It’s understated but still a bit fun,” Sasha replied, smiling politely. Jon and Martin nodded along, Jon humming in agreement. 

“I think it looks really good. The jacket seems flattering on you,” Martin offered. 

“Penny for your thoughts, lover boy?” Tim teased, poking Jon in the shoulder. 

Jon blushed and cast a glance over Tim before nodding. “I think it suits you.” 

“Thanks, boss,” He replied, laughing softly at Jon’s bashfulness. “Well, I think this is a pretty perfect choice. I also have an excellent idea for what I’m gonna do with it for the reception.” 

“Oh god. What are you planning, Tim?” Sasha groaned. 

“I’ll tell you later, I want to keep it a surprise a little bit!” He replied with a smug look. “Alright, so that’s me sorted, now it’s your turn Sash!” Tim took the jacket and tie off, handing them to Antonio. 

“So whilst we get started looking for Sasha, why don’t you go get measured for tailoring, sweetie?” Antonio suggested, ushering Tim towards his coworker. 

“Okay, but you guys best not make any decisions without me!” He warned. 

“We won’t,” Martin promised. “Go get measured.” 

Whilst Tim was gone, Antonio led Sasha over to the dresses, and began to browse them with her. She was much pickier, and struggled to find any options, but eventually did pick out a dress. It was dark grey, with a floor length a-line skirt gathered at the waist, a pleated belt detail, a queen anne neckline and mid-length sleeves. The dress was layered with chiffon, but managed to keep a slim silhouette. 

Tim came back just as she was about to try it on, and showed him it on the hanger for his approving thumbs-up before she went to try it on. After a moment, she called Tim over to help her zip it up, and he happily obliged.

“Guys, she looks amazing in this dress,” Tim said when he stepped out afterwards, holding the fitting room curtain back for her. She picked up the skirt a little as she walked out, blushing lightly.

“Uh, ta-da?” She offered nervously. “I mean, I’d wear heels with it, but this skirt is a little long. I like the rest of it, though.” 

“You look amazing, Sasha,” Martin said, smiling at her encouragingly. 

“It looks wonderful on you, I agree. You were right to be so picky,” Jon offered. 

“Thanks, guys. I do really like it, I like the neckline and the sleeves,” She commented, moving the skirt a little with one hand. 

“I agree, it looks absolutely gorgeous on you. If you like that one, we might have another that will catch your eye…” Antonio mused, going back to the railing and coming back with a similar floor length grey dress that had a queen anne neckline and mid-length sleeves; This one was a lighter grey, and had a lace-decorated bodice. Sasha looked at it for a moment then shook her head. 

“I don’t really like the lace on the bodice. Honestly, I do really like this dress. I think I might go with this one.” 

Jon nodded. “I think it suits you perfectly.” 

Tim grinned. “You look hot as fuck in that dress, Sash,” He confirmed, pulling her in for a cheeky kiss. 

She kissed him, but still slapped his arm afterwards. “Shut up, Tim. Well, that was surprisingly easy? I’m not usually this good at shopping,” She replied, still blushing lightly as she went back into the changing room to change back to her normal jeans and cardigan. 

“Well, now that we’re done here, we should all totally go out for drinks! I mean, to celebrate, and also because I need to catch Antonio up on all the crazy shenanigans and amazing tales of my life,” Tim declared.

“Tim, I’m still at work, darling,” Antonio pointed out. “We can catch up another time! Here, let me give you my number.” He pulled a pen from his breast pocket with a flourish and wrote his phone number on Tim’s hand. “We can meet up whenever you’re next up here.”

“Or you could come down to London and me and Sash can show you the sights~” Tim suggested, winking at him. 

After Sasha got measured for tailoring, they finalised their purchases and the group decided to spend the rest of the day showing Tim and Sasha the loch where they had gotten engaged. They took a short walk around it, since none of them had come dressed for hiking, just to point out the beach. 

—-

The following Monday, Jon was inevitably back at work - and this time, they had a new kid joining the class. Which, normally Jon wouldn’t mind, but recently he’d been the subject of almost every piece of gossip, and a new kid meant a huge resurgence in all of the old gossip around him as well. When the new kid arrived, the rest of the class was luckily already assembled and sat down. He found him a seat and then cleared his throat to draw his class’ attention. 

“Good morning class. We have a new classmate with us; this is Finch. Be nice and do try not to gossip too much.” 

Finch awkwardly waved and Jon set the class away with a starter task, then brought over the catch up work to Finch. Luckily their previous school had covered much the same content, so they wouldn’t be overwhelmed.

As soon as Jon left, Finch turned to the girl sat next to them, Olivia, and hushedly asked: “What’s with all of Mr Sims’ scars?” 

“We don’t know. He keeps a consistent story but it’s so obviously made up just to freak kids out so they won’t ask him again. He says that the dents in his face are from flesh-eating worms - personally I think they’re weird acne scars - and he says the one on his neck is from being held at knife-point. All he’ll say about his hand is that it was boiling wax.” 

“Boiling wax? Like, from a candle?” 

Olivia shrugged. “He has other scars on his arms, you see them when he rolls his sleeves up in summer. I think he’s just accident prone. Some people think he worked for MI5 or something, and that he moved here from London and stole an identity.” 

“Why would he be an english teacher, though?” 

“Yeah, it’s a dumb theory. But he _is_ kind of weird. He’s getting married though - his fiancé is called Martin. He brings him lunch and these weird yellow folders full of paper sometimes.” 

“Huh. That’s not that weird. The folders are probably like, lesson plans or resources and things that he forgot at home.” 

“Probably, yeah. But he doesn’t ever seem to forget anything else.” 

Olivia looked over at her teacher, and was met with a disapproving, knowing glare. She paled slightly and put her head down to start on the work in earnest, Finch following her gaze and suit soon after. Over the course of the day, Finch was informed of all the other peculiarities around Mr Sims - how sometimes old fashioned tape recorders would be on his desk, and he’d find them and get a mixed look of concern and anger on his face before locking the door to his room and drawing all the blinds. Nathan had once listened at his door and managed to hear him reading something out loud, but hadn’t been able to make out the words. At lunch, Finch was called over by Olivia to a table with a few other kids, where they were taught all the other interesting things about Mr Sims:

One kid found a really old warrant that was put out for his arrest or any tips about his location because he was suspected of second degree murder;  
Someone said they once heard that he bought and snuck an axe into his old job in London;  
Apparently he’d mentioned a friend called Melanie who did a ghost hunting show once, and everyone thought he must be talking about Melanie King from what used to be Ghost Hunt UK;  
Someone once found his old facebook account and it had pictures of him performing with some group called The Mechanisms, but research hadn’t managed to turn up what the group really was yet (they were still working on it);  
Someone overheard him talking to his fiancé, and heard him mention that he was legally dead for several months, and when someone else asked Mr Baker (the biology teacher) if that was possible he just frowned really hard and said ‘definitely not, get back to work’. 

Of course, the most outrageous rumour was that Mr Sims was psychic - everyone knew all of that stuff was fake - just because he would know when people hadn’t done homework, or when anyone was lying, or texting under the desk. 

Finch reeled a little bit about all the rumours surrounding their new english teacher. None of the other teachers had so many rumours about them, and despite all of the wild accusations Mr Sims had been one of the nicest teachers they’d had so far. They posited their own theory:

“Maybe he just wants some privacy? I mean, teachers notice things about students all the time, and there are lots of people called Melanie, and an accusation doesn’t mean he actually did kill someone. He could have had a rough childhood or something, he probably just wants some peace and quiet. I think we should just leave him alone. He seems stressed enough as it is,” They pointed out, looking down when they noticed everyone looking at them. 

“Yeah, you’re probably right. But those are the theories, anyway. Let’s change topics! Tell us about where you went to school before this!” Olivia prompted.


	4. Karaoke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim and Sasha come to stay - they discover something interesting about Jon's past, and then go out on the town.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M SO SORRY THIS HAS TAKEN SO LONG  
> words were NOT cooperating and if it feels like it cuts abruptly its because there was more planned and i just couldnt write it and i wanted to actually post this fucking chapter asjkhdkal  
> As always thank u so much Kaz for all ur amazing ideas and help with beta reading

It was a little less than 2 months later when Tim and Sasha came to visit again - this time because Tim had insisted on stag do’s for both of the grooms-to-be. By now they had finished their planning and booked the venue, and the main event was only a few weeks away. Their few guests had been informed of the date and venue as well as the colour scheme. As with last time, Jon picked Tim and Sasha up from the train station after work, and they spent the following evening in the living room discussing the weekend’s plans. 

“So, traditionally, the couple don’t go on each other’s stag or hen do, but you guys are hardly traditional, so if one of you really wants to come with I’m sure none of us will mind,” Sasha started, sipping the tea Martin had made her. She would be drinking coffee, but it was a little late in the evening for that kind of caffeine. 

“That depends on what you had planned,” Jon replied, raising an eyebrow at Tim. 

“Okay, I want to keep it mostly a surprise, but Jon’s is going to involve more alcohol, I think. Y’know, to get you in the mood.” 

Martin and Jon shared a look. “What about mine?” Martin ventured. 

“Yours is going to be Sasha, me and you so the nerd can stay home, and we’re going to the club!” 

“What? Tim, I-“ Martin started his rebuttal, hesitance clear on his worried expression. 

“Don’t worry, Martin, I promise it’s not gonna be weird or uncomfortable for you. It’s a surprise, remember?” Tim reassured him, winking cheerily and finger-gunning. “Anyway, Jon’s is first! Tomorrow night, wear your party outfit Sims, me, you and Sash are going out on the town!” 

“I don’t _have_ a party outfit. And what do you mean, ‘out on the town’?” 

Tim just winked in reply. “We’ll find you something to wear. C’mon, Sash, it’s wardrobe digging time!” 

Sasha laughed and followed Tim as he hopped up and pranced into Jon and Martin’s bedroom, flicking the light on and dramatically opening the wardrobe. Hudson followed, curling around Sasha’s feet - she stopped to pick him up and cuddle him after putting her drink down on the bedside. Jon and Martin shared another knowing but worried look, before both following and standing in the doorway to watch as their friends rummaged through Jon’s clothes. 

“Boring shirt, boring shirt, boring shirt, boring jumper, more shirts and more jumpers. Jon, do you wear anything else? What do you do in summer?” Tim asked, despite already knowing. 

“You know what I wear in summer, Tim. I wear shirts and roll the sleeves up,” Jon reminded him anyway. 

Tim hummed in disapproval and stepped back for a moment to consider the selection of shirts, whilst Sasha continued to rummage. 

Suddenly: “Oh my god! Jon, what is this?!” She cried in delight, pulling out a hangar and presenting the loose black shirt, brown waistcoat, many belts and steampunk metal heart. 

Jon’s face fell in horror as he stared at the familiar outfit that he’d forgotten he brought with him. “I… uh…” 

“Jon? I’ve never even- wait. I have seen it. Oh my god, Jon, you didn’t tell them?” Martin questioned.

“Tell us what? C’mon, Jonny boy, spill!” Tim insisted, going over to poke Jon’s side. 

“It’s um. It’s a, uh, a sort of… stage costume? For a band… That I was in…” He admitted awkwardly, avoiding eye contact and rubbing the back of his neck. 

“You were in a band?!” Tim cried. “And you never told me? Okay, I need a full explanation right now!”

“The Mechanisms. They were my college band. It was uh… a story-telling musical cabaret as told by a band of steampunk immortal space pirates. I, uh, I was the lead singer. I had a whole… persona. Jonny D’ville. I wrote some songs, but mostly I’d write the storytelling that linked them together. That… That’s the outfit I would wear to perform in,” He admitted, sighing and dragging a hand down his face. 

Sasha and Tim looked at each other in delight. “This is perfect. Oh my god,” Sasha said in disbelief. 

“Jon. You’re wearing this tomorrow. And I _need_ photos of you in this band,” Tim contributed, putting the outfit in the middle of the wardrobe so as to be easily accessible. 

Jon cleared his throat. “There’s, uh… There’s actually make-up, boots, and a gun with the outfit as well…” 

“You own a gun?” Sasha questioned, raising an eyebrow.

“An antique. It’s a decommissioned flintlock pistol.” 

“Of course it’s some nerd shit like that. Anyway, amazing, bring it all tomorrow night. Don’t worry about looking dumb, we’ll back you up!” 

“We will?” Sasha questioned. 

“Yeah! We’ll both also wear dumb outfits, it’ll be a laugh!”

Martin laughed. “Sounds like you lot have a great night planned. I’ll sit out of it, preserve the tradition and all that.” 

“You just don’t want to get roped into whatever they’re planning,” Jon pointed out smugly.

“Maybe so, but I’m sure you won’t want to get roped into whatever they have planned for me either.”

“Mmm, good point. Anyway, I’m _not_ going out as Jonny D’ville,” Jon insisted.

“Yeah, you are!” Tim and Sasha said in sync. 

Jon grumbled, knowing he was never going to win this argument. “Fine. But I’m not performing or anything stupid like that.”

Tim and Sasha shared a look and laughed to themselves. The group’s discussion turned to what they wanted to do tomorrow before Tim, Sasha and Jon went out for the night. They decided to stick mostly to staying in the house for the day, playing board games and watching movies together so that they could include Martin for the day to stop him feeling too lonely. Martin also reminded them that he wouldn’t be lonely, since he would have Hudson with him, and that sparked another of Tim’s most excellent ideas.

“I’ll live text you!” Tim suggested. “That way you can know about all the shenanigans without having to be there.” 

“Uh, sure, I guess,” Martin replied with a noncommittal shrug and a soft laugh. 

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Jon remarked, only half-joking. 

“Don’t worry, I can’t embarrass you more than you’re gonna embarrass yourself~” 

Jon hummed doubtfully, and Martin let out a yawn. 

“Tired, love?” Jon asked, taking his hand to hold gently. 

“Mmm, sorry. I think the tea’s made me sleepy,” Martin replied, suddenly looking incredibly tired. 

“Don’t apologise, Martin. We’ll leave the happy couple to canoodle and get some rest~” Tim teased, winking and pulling Sasha back to the spare room with him. Jon followed, tidied up a little and turned off the lights around the house before returning to their bedroom where Martin was already in pyjamas. He did the same, tidying around their bedroom a little before Martin grabbed him by the waist and pulled him against his chest to cuddle him. Jon gave a soft, endeared chuckle and placed his glasses and watch on the bedside before happily settling down and closing his eyes. As usual, he didn’t fall asleep, but it was nice to allow himself a moment of peaceful rest with his fiancé where he could forget his incurable insomnia. 

The next morning they all allowed themselves to sleep in late, with Jon and Martin being entirely too comfortable in each other’s embrace and Tim and Sasha having not gone to sleep straight away. Martin and Sasha made brunch in the form of sandwiches and cups of tea and coffee for them all, and they happily sat in the kitchen and idly talked. Tim said the word epitome at some point, which sparked Jon to yet again proclaim his profound hatred for the “nonsensical” spelling of the word. 

“I hate the word epitome,” Jon stated, gaining a sour expression. Martin’s sigh was long suffering.

“What? Why?” Sasha questioned, raising a quizzical eyebrow. 

“I-” He cut himself off and gave a look to Martin that read ‘shut up I know’ loud and clear, knowing he’d already sat through this rant a thousand times before. “It’s spelt badly.”

“Is it? I mean, it’s kind of spelt how you say it,” She pointed out. 

“It’s spelt epi- _tome_! That’s a _stupid_ way of spelling it!” He retorted, throwing his arms around. 

“You care about this far too much,” Tim remarked, laughing.

“I know, I know. But I’m _right_!” He insisted.

“None of us disagreed with you!” Martin replied, desperately trying to get Jon’s pointless tirade to end.

“I know. My point still stands that epitome is a _stupid_ word that is spelt in an idiotic fashion, and it should be spelt differently!” 

“Well, how would you spell it?” Tim asked incredulously. Martin and Sasha groaned and gave him a shared look of ‘why would you drag this out even more?’. 

“Literally any other way than how it is spelt. Probably with a y at the end, that would be more consistent with English pronunciation rules.” 

“English spelling is hardly consistent anyway, Jon,” Sasha pointed out, then mentally kicked herself for giving him more fuel to continue the rant. 

“At least they are mildly consistent. Sure, it’s not completely phonetically consistent - although that would be nice, honestly, it would make phonetics papers much easier to write. And read,” He retorted.

“Can we talk about something else other than the word epitome? It’s just one word. Use a synonym,” Martin suggested wearily. “I love you, Jon, but this is pointless.” 

“I’m sorry. But you do raise a good point about synonyms - I don’t like the word synonym either because it’s a misnomer. The words don’t have the same meaning at all - no two words have exactly the same meaning, otherwise the language wouldn’t have developed them,” Jon continued, still gesticulating wildly; He was weirdly passionate about the topic, though it was sort of explained by his English Literature Master’s degree. He continued: “Each word has unique connotations and implications that its usage provides. You can’t just replace a word with another and expect it to have the precise same meaning! It will inevitably change the tone of the message. Therefore, there is no such thing as a synonym, and the word is meaningless. It only represents words that have _similar_ meanings at best!” 

All three of the others looked at him tiredly, and silently agreed not to say anything. Jon rubbed the back of his neck and stared into his morning coffee for a while. “Sorry. We, uh. We can go back to ‘normal’ conversation now.” 

“Actually, I’m curious if there are any words you _do_ like,” Sasha questioned. 

“Oh. I uh… I have a love-hate relationship with contranyms…” He mused.

“Any words that you just like, completely?” She questioned hopefully.

Jon blushed softly as he thought of an answer. “Uh. Well, there is one word that I find myself very fond of, but you’ll all make fun of me for it.” 

“Perfect! Tell us,” Tim cried, leaning forward and suddenly engaged in the conversation he’d previously checked out of. 

“Uh…” Jon glanced between them and blushed deeper, looking at and playing with the ring on his finger. “Martin.” 

“Yeah?” Martin questioned, tilting his head to the side. 

“I- no, I meant… Martin is one of my favourite words.” 

Martin looked at him for a moment, then burst into giggles, blushing as well. Sasha and Tim cooed. 

“Awww, that’s really sappy,” Sasha teased. “That’s a proper noun though - doesn’t count.” 

Jon nodded to the side and hummed. “Alright, give me a moment to think properly…” 

“My favourite word is whale,” Martin contributed, looking down at his tea shyly. 

“Yeah? Why?” Tim asked. 

“I, uh, just think it sounds nice. It’s quite satisfying to get your mouth around. Whale,” He replied, over-enunciating the word at the end and smiling a little. Sasha and Tim tried it, and hummed and nodded in agreement with him. 

“I do rather like hapax legomena - both as a word, even if it’s technically two, and as a concept,” Jon replied finally. All three gave him a blank expression. 

“Uh, hapax legomena are words which only occur once within a document or piece of literature,” He explained. “The singular form is hapax legomenon.” 

“Of course you’d like the most obscure words possible,” Tim replied, rolling his eyes. “I don’t have a favourite word, because I’m normal.” 

“Yeah right, what even is normal anyway?” Sasha replied. “Normal sounds boring to me.” 

“If you take normal to mean the mean average of people, then a ‘normal’ person has just less than one eye, just less than one arm, just less than one leg, etcetera,” Jon replied, finishing off his coffee. 

“I feel like with all this talk of words, we should start board games off with Scrabble,” Martin joked, laughing to himself a little. 

“God, Scrabble is the most boring board game,” Tim complained. “But _fine_ , we can play _one_ game, to satiate the nerds.” 

Jon raised an eyebrow. “Neither of the ‘nerds’ actually asked for Scrabble, Tim.” 

“Yeah, but Martin only suggested it because of you two, so…” 

“Alright, well, let’s start with Scrabble then,” Jon replied with a soft chuckle, standing and starting to tidy up the dishes from brunch whilst Martin dug around in the sideboard for the board game, pulling out the others alongside it. 

“Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, Twister, Cluedo… Scrabble!” Martin narrated as he sorted through the various boxes. Tim and Sasha cleared the coffee table and Martin set up the board.

“One stipulation - Jon is not allowed to Know words,” Sasha added as they all took it in turns to pull out a letter to decide who would go first. Jon, having drawn a B, was going first, and immediately annoyed them all as he shuffled his tiles on the tray and his face lit up. 

“Oh god, what stupid word are you going to do,” Tim groaned, already picking up the dictionary in suspicion that none of them would know it. 

“Quixotic. Over the triple word score, and the double letter, and the double word from the starting tile, and I used all my letters,” Jon replied, looking like the cat who got the cream. “254 points.” Martin pouted and shuffled his tiles around.

“We said no knowing things, Jon,” Sasha retorted.

“You said no knowing _words_. You said nothing against knowing points.” 

Tim looked like he’d already given up - because he had. Sasha played ‘quizzes’ off of Jon’s Q, using a Z on a double letter tile and earning a very respectable 34 points.

Tim lays out his tiles without much thought. “Titty. 69 points.” He looked at Sasha. She frowned, and put her head in her hands. 

Jon scoffed, “Actually, that’s 10.”

“I’m a 10. Perfect. So I win.” Tim smirked.

“This is why we never played Scrabble in the break room if you were wondering, Jon.” Martin resigns himself 

“I wasn’t.” 

“I regret suggesting this,” Martin groaned. “Wait. Jon, that’s eight letters.”

Jon stared at the board blankly, brow furrowed. “Yes, it is, isn’t it…” 

“You’re only supposed to have seven.” 

“Mmmm. Perhaps we should play something else.” Tim snickers.

“Wait, that means Sash wins, then. Since you cheated,” Tim pointed out, and Sasha looked just a little smug at Jon’s sour expression. 

Martin mumbled, “I didn’t even get to play a word.”

Tim flipped the board. “Scrabble sucks! Let’s play Twister!” 

“I’m _not_ playing a game that involves putting my hands on the floor, we agreed on board game night; that implies a table is being used. Not until I’ve had at least two drinks, anyway, and it’s not even two in the afternoon yet,” Jon retorted. 

“Boring old man. Monopoly, then. I’m not playing Trivial Pursuit with Google-dot-Jon over here.” Martin giggled at that.

“Are you sure? Last time we played Monopoly in the break room, you threatened me with a blender,” Sasha pointed out.

“You also attempted to evict me from my desk as compensation for unpaid debts,” Martin added, looking at Tim dubiously.

“Well… yeah. But that’s all in the past! Anyway, I want to bully Jon.” 

“So my debt is forgiven, and I don’t have to pay you a tenner?”

“Hmm. I guess. Oh! Do you guys have a poker set?” Tim suggested. 

“You really want to play poker against me again, Tim?” Jon questioned, smirking. 

“Jon is banned from poker, remember? Even if he’s horrible at lying, mind-reading and encyclopedic knowledge of statistics or whatever is very cheaty,” Sasha reminded him. “You lost nearly three hundred quid last time to stubbornness, Tim.” 

“Fiiiine. One day we will rematch, Jonny boy, and I’ll regain my honour.”

“I eagerly await it,” Jon replied, pointedly over-enunciating and still looking smugly amused. 

“So, Monopoly?” Martin questioned, trying to break the tension, having cleared away Scrabble. 

“Dibs on the dog!” Tim shouted immediately, and Sasha sat him down with a look.

No one objected to it - Jon picked the top hat, Martin the thimble, and Sasha the boat. The game lasted a long time, as Monopoly tended to do; Martin surprised them all with his lucky dice rolls and rapid amassing of property. Jon managed to collect the train stations as well as the pink set; Sasha got Mayfair whilst Tim had Park Lane and they spent a long time trying to bargain with each other. Eventually, Tim handed over most of his money and some property for Mayfair, and gave Sasha the orange and green sets. After that, Jon lost to Sasha due to some unlucky rolls, and Tim bankrupted himself. Sasha was eventually whittled down whilst Martin coasted out the rest of the game happily sat in jail collecting rent. Jon was sulking over having been eliminated first. It was getting later in the day now, and Tim suggested they break into the drinks to stand a chance of getting Jon to agree to Twister. 

Sasha and Jon broke into a bottle of red wine, whilst Tim opened a beer and Martin abstained. They all relaxed for a while, long enough for Tim to get Jon onto his second glass of wine. 

“So, how are we feeling about Twister…?” He ventured when he noticed Jon was about half way down the glass. 

Jon hummed and stared into the red liquid as if it would provide answers. “I’m considering it.” Martin lent into his side.

“Hey, maybe it’ll get you ready to dance!” Sasha suggested cheekily. 

“I’m not going to be doing any dancing,” Jon replied firmly. 

“Please?” Martin murmured, looking up at him. “You could dance with me.” 

Jon blushed and looked down at him for a moment. “We don’t have any music to dance to,” He pointed out. Tim grinned and bluetoothed his phone to the TV, playing Careless Whisper before Jon frowned at him and he changed it to ‘boring waltz music’. Jon stood and offered his hand to Martin, bowing slightly. 

“May I have this dance?” He asked, grinning. 

Martin put his hand in Jon’s, and Jon brought it to his lips to softly kiss his knuckles. Martin blushed even darker as he stood and let Jon pull him close. Tim wolf whistled, and Sasha elbowed him, then grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet to dance with her. He looked down at her with love in his eyes when she lent against his chest, swaying back and forth while Tim played with her hair. Meanwhile, Jon was genuinely doing the waltz, with Martin trying not to step on his fiancé’s toes. 

When the music died, both couples stayed holding each other, letting the music play until Tim slyly switched it over to What’s New Pussycat. The others groaned. 

“Nevermind my music choice, I didn’t know you could dance like that boss!” 

“Oh. Well, I learned to waltz whilst in university, it’s not that difficult.” 

Sasha grabbed Tim’s phone and skipped, but What’s New Pussycat played again. She skipped ahead three more What’s New Pussycats, to find one It’s Not Unusual.  
“Tim, what is this playlist?” She questioned. 

He grinned. “So, Twister?” 

“Fine, fine. But we’ll have to move the coffee table,” Jon pointed out. “Tim, put some normal music on, for Christ's sake.” 

“This is Tom Jones! This is ‘normal’ music!” 

“You’re being more indignant than Jon.” Sasha found her playlist saved to Tim’s phone, and played that, turning the volume down to be background noise whilst Tim helped Martin move the coffee table out of the way and Jon unboxed the game. 

It started out uneventful enough, but after Jon had finished his glass of wine they ended up pinned under Martin and Tim with Sasha giggling from the corner. Tim flirted relentlessly, slapping his own ass at one point when he teased and accused Sasha of staring. They had been doing quite well, until Jon had to move his foot two colours over and ended up taking Martin’s legs out from under him and sending them all crashing to the ground. They all laughed and detangled themselves from each other carefully, Sasha helping to pull Tim up whilst Martin did the same for Jon. 

“I got a little bit crushed there,” Jon remarked, rubbing where his missing ribs used to be. 

“Sorry darling,” Martin apologised, kissing his cheek. 

“I’m gonna get another drink! Who’s having what? You two still on the wine?” Tim asked, gesturing to Sasha and Jon.

“I think I’ll go for a rose, if we’ve got one,” Sasha replied, handing Tim her glass. 

“I’ll abstain for the moment. I don’t want to be drunk before we even get there,” Jon replied. 

“What, you’re tipsy already? Jon, you’re such a lightweight.”

“I never used to be. I used to do shots and drink Smirnoff and schnapps,” Jon retorted. 

“You just got old,” Tim teased, sticking his tongue out at him before disappearing and getting the drinks. When he came back, he handed Sasha her drink and looked at Jon. “We’re so doing shots and drinking Smirnoff and schnapps now.” 

“Are we really?” Jon asked, smirking slightly. 

“We will persuade you eventually~” Sasha promised. “What time are we heading out, anyway?”

“Uh, it starts at 9pm, so we’ve got a bit yet,” Tim replied, checking his phone for the time. “Martin, you pick a game.”

“Huh? Oh. Uh…” Martin replied, staring at the stack of game boxes. “I don’t know. Maybe we could just watch a film or something?” He suggested. 

“As long as whatever it is isn’t boring. We need to be getting in a party mood~!” Tim cried, flopping onto the sofa in the middle, Sasha sitting and leaning against him on one side. They ended up watching a comedy show, until eight thirty when Sasha remarked that they should start getting ready to go out. 

“I want a shower, you need one, and Jon has an outfit to wear and make-up to do,” Sasha pointed out, getting up and pulling Tim up with her. 

“Yeah, good point. I can’t wait for this~” Tim replied, grinning like an idiot. 

Jon groaned and got up with a sigh. “Remind me again why I agreed to go out in the Jonny D’Ville outfit?”

“Because Tim’s going in his gaudiest Hawaiian shirt, lei and novelty glasses, and I’m wearing a rainbow button up.” 

Jon hummed sceptically, but still disappeared into the bedroom to start changing. He ended up digging out all of the belt he owned - 4 had been with the outfit, but he owned 3 more which he added for the hell of it. It took him a while to rummage in the box at the bottom of the wardrobe for the boots, goggles and the gun, but he found them eventually. The antique flintlock sat in a holster at his hip whilst the goggles sat atop his head and pushed his loose hair back. Once he’d pulled the boots on over his skinny jeans and tied the strap around his rolled-up shirt sleeve, he stepped out of the bedroom with another sigh. Martin looked over and gasped, grinning. 

“You look amazing! That’s a lot of belts, though,” He remarked, getting up to wander over. 

“It’ll look better with the makeup,” Jon replied, fidgeting with one of the belts. “And yes, there are 7. It’s kind of my gimmick, wearing as many belts as possible.” 

Martin laughed softly and kissed his cheek. Sasha stepped out of the bathroom wearing high-waisted black jeans and a rainbow button-up over a black vest that she’d half tucked in. She grinned at Jon. “Looking good, Jon. You want me to help you with makeup?” 

Jon blushed lightly and looked at his feet for a moment. “I imagine my ability to do adequate eyeliner has degraded somewhat over the years, so… yes, that would be helpful.” 

“Of course. Come with me,” She instructed, leading Jon into the spare room and having him sit on the edge of the bed. Tim left when they entered to take over the shower, taking his outfit with him. 

“So, do you just want me to do your eyeliner, or can I do some other stuff? A little contour and concealer, maybe? Actually, I’m not sure my concealer is the right colour for your skin tone, you’re a little darker than me,” Sasha replied, holding the small bottle up to Jon’s cheek. 

“I… I really don’t know about this kind of thing.” 

“Well, what did you used to do when you went out in this outfit?” She prompted. 

“Uh, I just did my eyeliner. Georgie would occasionally do some contour for me, I think?” He offered nervously. 

“Alright, we’ll do that then,” She said as she grabbed a brush and flicked open her contour palette. “Honestly, you don’t even need that much contour, you have really killer cheekbones.” 

“Uh, thank you?” Jon replied, raising one eyebrow and trying to sit still. 

Sasha didn’t take long to finish with the contour. “So, what kind of eyeliner did you use? Pencil, liquid, felt-tip, gel?” 

“I don’t know? Uh, pencil, I think?” Jon replied, staring incredulously at the bag of makeup. 

“Alright, we’ll use pencil then.” Sasha produced the black pencil and sharpened it, leaning close. “Try not to move too much, alright?” 

“I’ll do my best.”  
Jon was surprisingly good at not twitching or moving whilst Sasha did his eyeliner, and once that was done, she sat back. 

“Alright, is that it?”

“I, uh…” He cleared his throat. “I would have cracks drawn radiating out from my eyes.” 

Sasha laughed a little but smiled and happily obliged in drawing them on for him, though she deliberately didn’t make them too large. “Anything else?”

“Well… I did sort of smudge out my eyeliner a lot,” He replied. Sasha shrugged and smudged it out for him, darkening it a little along the top again. 

“Anything else?” She asked again, looking rather amused.

“No, no, that’s it,” He replied, standing up and looking at himself in the mirror. It was definitely neater than he’d ever managed. “Thank you.” 

“No problem,” She replied, starting on her own makeup - rainbow eyeshadow, to match her shirt. Just as Jon was leaving, Tim walked in, and grinned. 

“Looking good, Jonny boy~” He teased, shooting finger-guns at him and winking. 

Jon hummed but couldn’t help a small smile. “Looking more gaudy than ever, Tim,” He remarked in turn, looking him up and down. Hawaiian print shorts, pineapple patterned socks, bright yellow graphic tee, and Hawaiian shirt in a completely different print to the shorts. 

“Wait! It gets better,” He promised, diving into his suitcase and throwing a fake flower lei around his neck, and pausing for dramatic effect before putting a pair of glittery, pink flamingo sunglasses on. 

“This is ‘better’?” Jon asked, laughing. 

Tim grinned. “Yeah! See, I told you we’d all look wild. You just look more emo than us.” 

“It’s steampunk, not ‘emo’, Tim,” Jon corrected. “I’ll let you both finish getting ready.” He retreated back into the living room to sit with Martin for a while, mentally preparing himself for the chaos of the evening to come. 

“Don’t have too much fun without me. And don’t drink too much, alright? I don’t want you to be too hungover or ill tomorrow,” Martin told him, idly playing with his fiance’s hair. 

“Not sure I can still get ill. It’s been 2 years and not once have I had as much as a sniffle,” Jon remarked.

“Do you Know that, or are you assuming?” Martin asked softly. 

“I Know,” Jon replied, sighing softly. “Yet another thing to make me less human-”

“Stop right there, mister. Party mood, remember? Tonight is for you to enjoy yourself!” Martin interrupted, affectionately poking his side. It didn’t take much longer for Tim and Sasha to finish getting ready, and Martin grinned at the group. Tim’s choice of footwear was a pair of bright red converse, and Sasha was wearing his rainbow doc martens. “You all look great. You want me to drive you?” He offered. “Since you’ve all been drinking already.” 

“No need, we called a taxi,” Tim replied. “Didn’t want to interrupt your evening.”

“Oh, alright. It wouldn’t have been any trouble, y’know,” He pointed out, standing up. 

It took a few minutes for the taxi to arrive, and Jon kissed Martin goodbye for the evening. “Stay safe love,” Martin told him, waving them off as they all piled into the taxi. The drive down to the bar didn’t take too long, and they got there around nine thirty - the bar wasn’t too busy, but there was already someone on the stage doing karaoke. A large banner was hung above it - ‘KARAOKE OPEN MIC NIGHT!’ - and written in large bubble letters. Jon eyed it suspiciously, looking between a grinning Tim and Sasha.

“I’m not singing,” He told them adamantly. 

“I’m sure you’ll change your tune with a few drinks~” Tim replied cheerily. “Pick your poison, Sims, I’m buying the first round!”

Jon hesitated but followed him to the bar, eyeing the wide selection of alcohol. “I think I’ll start with a mixed berry cider,” He replied. “Start the evening off lightly.” 

Tim smiled. “Yeah, alright. I think I’m down to have one of those as well - Sash?”

“Sure, sounds like a good place to begin.” 

“Alright then! 3 mixed berry ciders,” Tim told the barkeep, paying quickly and grabbing the bottles. “Let’s find a table.” 

Sasha nodded and started to scout the place out, finding them a table with a good view of the stage and relatively close without being immediately next to any loudspeakers. They settled in and started to sip their drinks, when Tim spoke up. 

“A toast! To your future with Martin~” Tim cheered, winking. 

“To your future!” Sasha echoed, and Jon smiled as he clinked his bottle against theirs.

They listened to a few people do drunken renditions of songs, but when someone did Britney Spear’s Hit Me Baby One More Time, Tim couldn’t resist singing along and Sasha swiftly pushed him onto the stage with instructions to do more Britney. Tim laughed to himself as he took the microphone, but his laughter died as he started to take his performance seriously. 

“Baby, can’t you see? I’m calling~ A guy like you, should wear a warning~” He sang, dancing along and directing his singing towards Sasha. By the time he hit the pre-chorus, he was well into the swing of it, and was surprisingly able to hit the high notes quite well. “Too high, can’t come down~”

Jon and Sasha were chuckling to themselves, watching the performance with glee. When Tim got back, they laughed together and ordered another round of drinks - another cider for each of them, plus shots. Jon hesitated to do the shot, but after a moment’s consideration he let himself let loose and drank it. 

Next up, it was Sasha and Tim doing a duet: I Won’t Say I’m In Love. They were both tipsy enough that were shouting more than they were singing, but they made a point of looking over at Jon the whole time they were on stage. Over the course of the evening, Tim performed several more songs, including but not limited to Tainted Love, My Heart Will Go On, and Dancing Queen. Jon was persuaded to take the stage, and did a surprisingly coherent rendition of Istanbul (Not Constantinople), considering how much he’d been drinking. Sasha insisted on doing Never Gonna Give You Up, much to everyone else’s chagrin, and after all of that their between-song idle conversation turned to the band Jon had been in. He let slip that he still knew a lot of if not most of the songs, especially since he was the one who had written some of them. After comparatively little persuasion, Jon agreed to sing them, and Tim readied his finger over the record button. 

First up, his favourite: One Eyed Jack’s, which he performed with a bottle of cider in one hand and his prop gun in the other. The crowd loved it, and Tim loved recording how exuberant Jon was with his wild gesticulations. After the applause, it was followed by Gunpowder Tim vs The Moon Kaiser, generating some laughs and cheers during, which then led into Drunk Space Pirate; that ended up in the crowd picking up the chorus very quickly and by the end the whole place was drunkenly singing along. Keeping the energy up, Jon followed it with Pump Shanty, and again the crowd picked up the rhythm and by the end were clapping along. With the encouragement of the crowd at large, Jon offered to do the whole album, and with no real objections, he did so - he only needed to Know a handful of lyrics that slipped his mind. By the end he was thoroughly drunk, having been swigging from bottles the entire time. Eventually, however, the open mic ended and a DJ took the stage instead. Tim grinned and dragged Sasha and Jon with him onto the dance floor. Tim wasted no time in dancing, and Sasha laughed and followed suit. 

Jon stubbornly refused to dance ‘properly’, Tim accused, until Caravan Palace was played and he smirked to himself. Tim was quick to recognise the devious look in his eye that meant he was about to do something reckless, and him and Sasha made a space for him. Jonathan Sims, in all his steampunk outfit, started to swing dance to the music, bottle of cider still in hand. The crowd cheered, and the DJ continued to play electro-swing music, so Jon continued to dance, getting more enthusiastic until he found himself getting too tired to continue. Tim recorded almost all of it.

By this time, it was the early hours of the morning, but Tim sent the video to Martin anyway for him to see whenever he woke up. When Jon was done dancing they returned to their table and drank some water. Each of them were starting to feel the effects of the large amounts of alcohol, and they swiftly agreed to make their way home to get some more water and then go to sleep.

Sasha called them a taxi, and they all went to wait outside to get some fresh air before it picked them up. They huddled together on a bench to stay the evening chill, each other and the alcohol helping to keep them warm. Once home, Jon fumbled with his keys until Sasha thought to test if it was actually locked. It wasn’t. 

After stumbling in and shedding his many belts, goggles and waistcoat, Jon curled up on the sofa; he didn’t want to risk disturbing Martin, he mumbled, already half asleep. Sasha laughed softly and put a glass of water on the side table for him before getting one for herself and Tim and dragging him upstairs to collapse onto the bed with her. 

In the morning, unsurprisingly, Martin woke up before the rest of them. He looked back through the messages Tim had sent whilst he was sleeping over his breakfast and tried his best not to snort his tea at all their drunken antics. After breakfast, he checked in on Jon - still snoring on the sofa - and pulled the blanket back up over him before quietly returning to their bedroom to sit in bed with another cup of tea and read whilst waiting for the others to wake up. 

Next awake was Sasha, only a little hungover. She quickly solved that for herself with painkillers and some breakfast, stopping to fuss over Hudson when he showed up to rub against her leg and beg for some of her breakfast. Tim followed her down soon after, more hungover than Sasha and groaning pitifully as he took painkillers and fell into a chair next to Sasha.

“Good morning,” She greeted smugly.

“Mmmmornin…” Tim groaned, rubbing his hands over his face. “Jon awake yet?” 

“Nope. Still out cold on the sofa,” She replied, and as if on cue the morning quiet was broken by Jon’s snoring. “Think this is more sleep than he’s had in the past month combined.” 

Tim snorted. “Yeah, probably. What about Martin?” 

“What about me?” Martin asked, coming into the kitchen with his empty mug. “Morning you two. Have fun?”

“Morning, Martin. It was amazing, you should have seen Jon - you watch my videos yet? How bad is the camera work?” Tim asked.

Martin giggled. “Yeah, I’ve watched them. It’s about what you’d expect from a drunk guy filming another drunk guy.” 

“So, terrible, then?” Sasha asked. 

“Yeah, it’s not great.” They all laughed at that, then Martin looked a little guilty. “Oops. Don’t wanna be too loud and accidentally wake Jon up, he deserves the sleep…”

“I wouldn’t worry too much, he is completely out for the count,” Tim replied. “He’s not waking up if the world ended.” 

The three of them continued to get ready for the day, Jon not waking up until well past noon. They were still congregated in the kitchen when an incredibly groggy Jon stumbled in, with eyeliner smudged across his face and his hair a mess. Martin smiled fondly, and guided him gently to a chair whilst he fetched him painkillers and made him something to eat. 

“Sleep well?” Martin asked as he scrambled some eggs. 

“I… think so. I certainly slept a lot, more than I have in a very long time,” He replied after swallowing the tablets, head in his hands and eyes closed. 

“You were so out. Also, you look like shit,” Tim replied.

“Thanks, Tim. I feel like shit,” He replied sarcastically.

“Let me go get you some makeup wipes so you can clear your face of all that eyeliner,” Sasha replied, excusing herself to go find them in her bag upstairs. Martin presented Jon with a plate of scrambled eggs and beans on toast, which he thanked him for with a kiss before ungracefully shovelling the food into his mouth. Once Jon had eaten and gotten himself cleaned up - though it was Martin who had to brush his hair for him - they started to discuss what they were doing for Martin. 

“We’re going to a club!” Tim cried cheerfully. 

Martin looked anxious. “What do you mean a club? What kind of club?” 

“Don’t worry, Martin, you’ll like it we promise. It’s a surprise!” Tim replied. 

Martin hummed sceptically, and Jon kissed the frown off his face. “You’ll enjoy yourself - I was sceptical too, but I had a great time. Trust them,” He replied. 

Tim was grinning like an idiot and Sasha offered an encouraging smile. “I know telling you not to worry is like asking a bird not to fly, but we wouldn’t put you through anything you would hate, Martin,” She assured him. 

“Yeah, yeah I know… Alright. Well… what kind of outfit should I be wearing?” Martin asked. 

Tim and Sasha shared a look, and shrugged. “Just something reasonably nice, I guess?” Sasha offered. “I was going to wear a pencil skirt and a sparkly shirt.” 

“I’m taking the opportunity to wear a cocktail dress,” Tim proclaimed, winking at him. “A sparkly cocktail dress!” 

Martin laughed softly and hummed. “So, shirt and tie sort of thing, then?” 

“Yeah, sounds about right,” Sasha assured him.

They didn’t do much for the rest of the day until they were due to leave - at Jon’s request they watched a few episodes of Blue Planet II, played a ‘proper’ game of Scrabble, and sat around chatting. It wasn’t too long to wait until Martin, Tim and Sasha were waving him goodbye and piling into the taxi.


	5. Poetry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim and Sasha take Martin on a night out, Jon pines even more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is not beta read because my beta reader was unavailable but I still wanted to release it, so please forgive me if this chapter is slightly lower quality than previously.

Martin was visibly nervous as they were driven to whatever the mysterious ‘club’ was - but Sasha continued to offer reassurance. He hummed, and stated that he refused to embarrass himself. 

The drive was luckily not very long, and Martin’s confusion only grew when they stepped out in front of a very old theatre, with posters outside promoting the local slam poetry club’s performance. “You… so when you said ‘club’... you meant a slam poetry club?” He asked incredulously. 

Tim and Sasha laughed. “Yeah! C’mon, we’ll get drinks and snacks,” Tim replied, grabbing his wrist and dragging him inside. Martin smiled fondly, happily following the pair of them inside. They each bought themselves fizzy drinks and plenty of unhealthy snacks to enjoy, and Tim and Sasha attentively listened when Martin took the time after each performer to either gush about the performer themselves or their poetry. Sasha bore the brunt of engaging with Martin in his analysis of the various themes and metres, nodding politely along at his excited proclamations of iambic heptameter or other such terminology she almost understood. 

“That was Harry Baker! He was a world poetry grand slam champion!” Martin enthused. “The repeating plosives and alliteration in his poem Paper People makes such an amazing meter, it was so good to hear it be performed live! He's probably my favourite slam poet, he actually inspired me to try writing slam poetry myself - I'm not very good at it, but I managed one or two good pieces!” 

"I'm sure they're wonderful, Martin - you know you should give yourself more credit for writing as much as you do. It's impressive," Sasha replied. Martin blushed softly and rubbed the back of his neck. 

"Ah, thanks..." 

Tim ended up almost falling asleep by the end of the evening, unable to stay focused on the poetry, which left Sasha on her own to continue to support Martin’s enthusiasm over it for the rest of the evening. After the event was over, they walked a short distance to find takeout pizzas for dinner - one Hawaiian and one chicken supreme - and ate them huddled together on a bench in the park, despite the slight evening chill that was beginning to set in. Tim in particular complained about his legs being cold, and Sasha pointed out that he was the one who’d insisted on wearing the cocktail dress despite her insistence that he would be cold by the end of the night, to which his response was "I'm too hot to get cold!". 

“Hey, I can hear Jon complaining about pineapple on pizza right now,” Tim joked, making an exaggeratedly grumpy face as he continued: “It’s a sweet fruit! Pizza is a savoury dish and the juices from it make the pizza go soggy! Hurr durr, or something like that.”

Martin snorted. “Yeah, something like that. Or he’d start complaining about, I don’t know, the production of pineapples.” 

“Where _do_ pineapples come from?” Tim questioned, taking a bite of pizza and staring at the pineapple pieces accusingly. 

“Uh, I think they like, grow in bushes?” Sasha replied.

“Really? I thought they were a tree thing…” Tim furrowed his brow, scowling deeper at the pineapple on his slice. 

“I wrote a poem about a tree, once. Well, several, actually,” Martin hummed, kicking his feet and pulling his jacket tighter around himself. 

“Is it a metaphor for _pine-_ ing over Jon?” Tim joked, grinning at his own pun, and elbowing Martin gently. 

Martin and Sasha groaned, and they quickly finished their slices before they closed the boxes and called a taxi to take them back home again. They were in not nearly as late as Jon, Tim and Sasha had been the night prior, so Jon was still awake and watching a documentary on the TV about true crime cold cases, getting annoyed at himself for Knowing some of the details. He had a notebook open, with some phone numbers and ‘anonymous tips’ he would give later. 

“We’re back,” Martin called, smiling as Hudson rubbed against all of their legs and meowed like he hadn’t been fed. “When was Hudson fed?” 

“Literally an hour ago, he’s fine,” Jon replied, standing up to kiss his cheek and welcome him home. “So, what did you end up doing?” 

“We went to a slam poetry club! It was great, Harry Baker was there - the grand slam world champion. We had a great time - or, well, I did, Tim nearly fell asleep and I think I talked Sasha’s ear off a bit…” He admitted, rubbing his arm a little.

“Hey, you’re okay. We’re glad you enjoyed yourself,” Sasha assured him, patting his shoulder. “I’ll go make some tea - we have leftover pizza for you, as well, Jon.” 

“Oh, thank you. What’s on it?” He asked, picking Hudson up to give him some fuss. “Stop being a pest, Sergeant Corporal. Show the decorum appropriately befitting your rank,” He told him, giving him a stern expression. Hudson meowed loudly and indignantly in response, and Jon tutted. 

“One’s Hawaiian and one’s chicken supreme,” Sasha replied, stopping to fuss Hudson a little. Jon pulled a face. 

“Pineapple does not belong on a pizza, it’s a fruit…” He groaned, and Tim laughed. 

“Knew you’d say that! Here, have chicken supreme, grumpy old man.” 

“Thank you,” He replied pointedly, glaring at Tim a little from over his glasses, putting Hudson down so he could transfer the pizza to a plate in order to microwave them - they’d gotten a little cold on the journey home. “Heathen.” 

“Hey!” Tim replied, mock-offended. 

“Did you manage to persuade Martin to read you some of his poetry? Some it’s actually quite good,” Jon asked, changing the subject. Martin blushed. 

“I thought you hated poetry?” Tim asked, and Jon sighed. 

“I don’t hate poetry, I’ve explained this before. I hate the pompous prestige and inherent classism in the elitist nature of poet laureates and classical poetry that’s held in such high regard. I hate the fact that every single word a poet chooses _must_ mean something, but if it’s in prose instead of verse somehow it’s less profound,” He rambled, gesticulating his annoyance. 

“He means he hates poetry, just not mine,” Martin translated, and Jon sighed again. 

“My point was that Martin should read poetry for us all. Especially since I sang Mechanisms albums last night.”

“Oh, gosh, I don’t know about that…”

“I’m down to listen to Martin’s poetry,” Tim replied, looking at Sasha.

“Yeah, I’m up for that,” Sasha agreed. “If you want to, of course, Martin.”

“I mean… I suppose… I guess I could find one I don’t mind you hearing but… most of my poems are either sad or, uh…” He trailed off, blushing.

“Completely sappy and about Jon?” Tim supplied helpfully.

“Uh, yeah,” He admitted quietly. 

“Hit us with your best shot, let’s see how flustered we can make Jon,” Sasha replied with a mischievous smirk. 

“Oh, gods, okay… Let me go find my notebook,” Martin replied, going into the living room to scan the bookcase for his notebook whilst the others sat around the kitchen table, Jon eating the pizza they’d brought him. Martin returned after a few moments holding 2 ring-bound paperback notebooks, one looking more used than the other. “I don’t know which notebook it’s in, actually, so I… I just grabbed both, figured I would look through them here.”   
Tim grinned and when Martin sat down, leaned to look over his shoulder a little as he opened the older notebook to begin flicking through. There were several pages of entirely crossed out lines, notes written in margins, and pieces of paper tucked in from where he’d had ideas whilst he didn’t have his notebook with him and had written said ideas down on whatever was to hand - receipts, envelopes, napkins. Eventually, Martin turned a page and smiled.   
“I remember writing this one. It surprised me, I got it how I wanted it pretty much on the first draft,” He commented, looking over the page fondly. 

“Well, are you gonna share?” Sasha prompted hopefully, giving him an encouraging smile. 

“Alright. It’s titled ‘Lemon Drop’,” Martin began, looking up briefly and seeing only quiet encouragement, took a deep breath, and began to read: 

“Lemon drop sweet  
and not too bitter  
Tastes like sunshine  
and the sound of your voice  
Could put me to sleep  
Just let me brush my teeth first  
I want the taste of you on my lips  
Hold it in my mouth  
Let it linger as long as it longs to  
Lick my lips and learn to remember  
the fading taste  
Your bitter is too sweet  
And you’re bitter that you’re sweet  
But you were always sweet  
And tried to hide behind bitter, didn’t you?  
You were scared to be sweet  
Tried to be a hard boiled sweet  
Instead of the liquid centre  
Let me drink it all in  
And learn to remember.”

Jon was blushing lightly by the end - he knew it was about him, and how he used to be around Martin. Sasha and Tim were grinning. 

“That was really nice, Martin,” Sasha told him. 

“Hell yeah! Nice roast of Jon,” Tim said with a wink. 

“I, uh- thank you, but, it’s not really supposed to be a ‘roast’, I-, uhm. It’s supposed to be kind of fond-” He stuttered, hiding his face in his hand a little and avoiding eye contact. “But… you- you really liked it?” 

“We loved it!” Tim cheered. “You have any more for us, or do we only get one?” 

“You want to hear more?” Martin questioned, looking at him in mild disbelief. “You- you liked it that much?” 

“Sure! Today’s your day, we’re doing stuff that you like. You do poetry, we’re here to listen and support you, dude.” 

“Thanks, Tim.” 

“Of course, Mart-o!” He cheered, then cringed at himself. "Oh, never let me call you that again." 

Martin laughed softly, and read a couple more of his poems, sharing only the ones that he liked the best and thought wouldn’t bring the mood down by being sombre. The rest of the group encouraged him, until Jon let a yawn slip and the conversation turned to mocking him for it. 

“Tired already, old man?” Tim asked.

“I’m only a year older than you, Tim,” Jon pointed out. 

“Yeah, but you complain about your knees hurting and do sudokus, so,” He shrugged. “My point stands. You’re old.” 

Jon hummed in disapproval. “Anyway, I’m not tired.”

“You just yawned, Jon,” Sasha pointed out. “You never do that.” 

“I yawn, sometimes,” He retorted indignantly. “Just… Just not often, or recently.” 

“We can go to bed, if you like Jon,” Martin offered, reaching over to lace their hands together. Jon hummed, looking down at their hands and the ring on his finger with a fond, barely-there smile. 

“I’m alright, I don’t need to sleep,” He assured him. 

“Just because you don’t need to doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t,” Sasha pointed out. “You still deserve to rest, Jon.” 

He hummed and smiled across the table at her. “I know, I know. I suppose, I do actually have to be up for work in the morning, and it’s getting late. I can drop you both off at the train station before work, if you’re alright with getting up early?” He offered. 

“Nah, don’t worry about it - we’ll sleep in and get a taxi,” Tim replied. “Let’s all head to bed, though. It’s been one hell of a weekend.” 

Martin nodded and got up to carefully return his poetry notebooks to the bookcase, whilst Jon and Sasha tidied the kitchen and Tim went to take a shower. With just the two of them in the kitchen, Sasha took the chance to pry a little.

“So… excited to get married? Nervous?” She asked, nudging him a little with her elbow as she folded a tea towel. Jon flushed instantly, pausing to look down at the ring on his finger. “I’ve never seen you look so… _soft,_ ” She declared, giggling a little. Jon spluttered. 

“I’m- I’m not _’soft’_ , whatever that even means. I’ve never been soft in my life,” He retorted. 

“Uh-huh. The sappy look you get whenever you look at your ring betrays you,” She teased, dramatically sighing and clutching her hands to her chest. _”Mahtin…”_

“Is that supposed to be an impression of me?” Jon asked incredulously, raising his eyebrow. Sasha giggled. 

“That’s exactly what you sound like, you know.”

“I do not.”

“You do. It’s ok to admit you’re totally smitten for Martin, you know, you _are_ engaged.” 

“I-... Yeah. We’re getting married in 17 days.”

“Not that you’re counting?” She teased.

“Oh, I don’t have to. But if I did have to, I would be,” He replied with a slightly smug smile. 

“Of course. Anyway you never answered my question! Nervous? Excited? How are you feeling?” 

“I- uh… all of the above, I suppose. I just want everything to go according to plan - I can’t See the future and that annoys me sometimes…” 

“Everything will be fine, Jon. It’s normal to worry about that kind of thing when you’ve got a big event like a wedding happening. But, que sera, sera - and it’ll all be fine,” She promised. 

He hummed in agreement, staring at his engagement ring for a while with a soft smile before pulling himself back to reality to finish tidying up.

“What flavour of cake did you guys decide on in the end?” Sasha asked.

“Ah, one layer is Victoria sponge cake with raspberry jam, the other is red velvet,” He replied with a smile. 

“Oooo, I haven’t had red velvet in so long. Have you guys got dinner planned too?” 

“Mhm. We wanted to keep things fairly light - salad starter, garlic and herb chicken entrée, after checking that no one in attendance is vegetarian, and then wedding cake.”

“Sounds tasty. I just can’t wait to see you all dressed up. Are you getting your hair done?” She asked, leaning against the counter since there was nothing left that needed tidying. 

“...I don’t think so. I don’t like people touching my hair, not unless it’s Martin, and well - he’ll probably be too busy to do my hair for me.” 

“Have you asked him? I’m sure he could time-table that in.” 

“No, I haven’t… Maybe I will.”

“I think you should - plus it’ll be cute! You guys get a little moment together before the ceremony type of thing. Since you guys aren’t doing the whole don’t-see-your-partner-beforehand thing.” 

Jon hummed in agreement. “Yes, I suppose it would be nice to get a quiet moment with Martin before the ceremony in front of everyone…” 

“See? I’m full of great ideas. Why don’t you sleep on it, hm?” 

“Jon? You coming to bed?” Martin asked, poking his head into the kitchen. “Oh, and, Tim just got done with the shower if you wanted it.” 

“Yes, I’ll be with you in a minute,” Jon promised, and Martin smiled before disappearing to head upstairs shadowed by Hudson. 

“It was nice to have you to myself for a minute, but go on - take a shower and get some rest,” Sasha told him, smiling. “I’m going to go take my makeup off.” 

“Alright. Goodnight, Sasha.” 

“Goodnight, Jon.” 

Jon quietly made his way upstairs and took a shower, taking a little longer than necessary so he could have a moment to stand under the hot water and think quietly to himself about the upcoming wedding. He’d double checked that they had everything in place; He’d triple checked, even. Still, he found himself worrying that they’ve forgotten something.   
After a while he managed to push the worries aside though, getting out and calling to Sasha to let her know the shower was available before changing into his pyjamas and climbing into bed behind Martin and Hudson. Martin rolled over to throw an arm over Jon’s waist and pull him close. 

“Hi,” He whispered.

Jon chuckled quietly. “Good evening,” He replied, resting one hand on Martin’s cheek and the other on his chest. 

“You okay? You seemed like you were thinking about something earlier.” 

“Oh, I’m fine. Just… thinking about the wedding plans.”

“Anything in particular about wedding plans…?”

“Not really, just thinking and making sure we didn’t miss anything. Well…” Jon mused, humming to himself and breaking eye contact briefly.

“Yeah?” Martin gently prompted, tracing his fingers along Jon’s spine gently. 

“Well, Sasha suggested something earlier. She, uhm, well, she asked if I had plans to get my hair done, and I pointed out that I don’t really like people touching my hair unless it’s you. And, well, Sasha suggested that maybe you could do my hair for me, before the ceremony. So that we could have a moment to ourselves just before, too, not just to do my hair.” 

“That sounds nice. I’d like to do your hair for you,” Martin replied, smiling sweetly. 

“You- you would?” 

“Yeah. A moment to ourselves sounds nice, especially since we’ll be interacting with people for a lot of the rest of the day, yknow?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it does…” He muttered tiredly, letting his head rest against Martin’s chest. 

Martin hummed and ran his fingers through Jon’s hair, smirking as he felt Jon lean into the touch and subtly sigh. Jon’s grip in Martin’s shirt tightened slightly, and their legs tangled together as Jon let himself relax into his fiancé’s touch. Jon’s other hand moved to be under Martin’s arm, curling up to rest against his shoulder with spread fingers. Their breathing slowed, Jon listening to Martin’s heartbeat and feeling it under his fingertips, letting it lull him to sleep and allowing himself to rest even if he doubted his ability to actually fall asleep. Martin held him close, burying his nose in Jon’s hair and deeply breathing in the lingering scent of his apple and cinnamon shampoo that mixed sweetly with the smell of their blankets that had become so comfortingly familiar. 

In the room next door, a very different but thematically similar situation was occurring. Sasha had taken a brief shower, and came back to Tim laid in bed scrolling through his twitter, though he put his phone down as soon as she walked in. “You want help brushing your hair?” He offered.

“Yeah. I didn’t wash it, just for the sake of saving time and hairdryer noises.”   
“Fair,” He replied, sitting up and grabbing the hairbrush from Sasha’s bedside whilst she perched on the side of the bed. He shuffled closer and started to carefully brush her hair, smiling as he watched the tension leave her shoulders. He took his time, making sure not to pull on her hair as he worked through the few knots in it. 

“Mm. You’re good at this,” Sasha commented idly. 

“I’ve had a lot of practice,” Tim replied with a grin, finishing and leaning over to kiss her shoulder. “You wanna cuddle?”

“Let me get into pyjamas first,” She replied.

“Hey, clothes are not mandatory for cuddling with me~” 

Sasha gave him a warning look, and he winked in response. She laughed softly and finished drying herself off, changing into her pyjamas before joining Tim in bed. “You want to be little spoon again?” She asked, giving a soft yawn. He blushed softly, and quietly replied:

“Uh, yeah, if that’s okay.”

“It’ll always be okay, Tim,” Sasha murmured, burying her face in the gap between his neck and the pillow whilst wrapping one arm around his waist and the other under the pillow. Tim made a quiet noise of contentment, resting his hand over Sasha’s where it lay against his stomach, leaving the other to hang off the edge of the bed after he’d pulled the covers up over them a little higher and turned the lamp off. Sasha took a deep breath, smelling Tim’s fancy dragon fruit scented body wash on his skin and his strawberry scented shampoo in his hair where it fell against the pillow next to her. She smiled - Tim always smelt good, and usually like fruit, and that made cuddling up to him that much sweeter. He was also always fairly warm, which meant he was particularly nice to cuddle after being outside in the cold during the later months of the year. They both barely moved from that position, except for Tim occasionally shifting his legs or stroking his thumb over the back of Sasha’s hand, for the short while he stayed awake whilst laid like that. After all, he found it incredibly difficult to stay awake when laid quiet and still with Sasha pressed firmly against his back, doubly so after the intense weekend they’d had. 

The following morning, Jon let Martin sleep in, quietly slipping out of bed exactly 1 minute before his alarm and turning it off before it sounded. He smiled as Martin shifted and buried his face into Jon’s pillow, still asleep, and allowed himself a moment to admire his fiancé. His eyes traced lines like constellations between the freckles that dusted his cheeks, carefully memorising the map for him to disregard later and allow himself to get lost in them. A warm feeling filled him as he leant against the doorway and admired how the first rays of early morning sunlight cast across the pillow caught the golden curls of his hair, haloing him with the glittering light. This was the man he was going to get to marry - to promise his life to.

But first, he had to go to work, and avoid looking _too_ smitten in front of his classes. With a soft sigh, Jon tore himself away from his daydreaming, finally turning to pad downstairs with Hudson at his feet. They shared a look, Jon silently urging the cat not to meow too loudly, lest he disturb Martin, and in return he would feed Hudson before himself. Silently, the agreement was made, and Jon smiled to himself as he set the food bowl on the ground and pet him a few times before he set about getting ready. It was strange, getting ready for work without Martin to ask about his lesson plans and make tea or coffee for him (coffee this morning - Jon could already tell he would need the caffeine). 

Once he’d had his breakfast and gathered his papers into his bag, he slipped his shoes and jacket on, waving goodbye to Hudson and leaving as quietly as he could manage. The drive to work was painfully short, taken up entirely by Jon thinking back on the image of Martin so peacefully asleep, but once he reached the school and had settled in his classroom for the day, Jon took out his phone and left Martin a couple of messages to wake up to. 

[From <3 Jon <3]: Good morning, Martin. I didn’t want to wake you up since you were so peacefully asleep, so I left as quietly as I could.   
[From <3 Jon <3]: Also, I fed the Sergeant Corporal at the usual time, so his meows are lies no matter how emphatic.  
[From <3 Jon <3]: I hope you slept well. I’ll be thinking of you x 

Jon debated the x for a while, but decided it was definitely okay for him to leave one at the end of such a sappy message to his fiancé, even if he didn’t normally. Besides, it was true, he was going to be thinking of Martin, he was sure of it; the image of him, haloed in perfect aureate light turning his freckles into deer spots in peaceful repose. It was something he didn’t want to forget. Once again, he was broken out of his daydreaming by his job - namely, someone knocking on his classroom door. 

“Yes? Come in,” He called, putting his phone back into his bag. 

One of the other English teachers appeared at the door as it swung open; Jon recognised her as Alice, or Miss Liddel. “Hi, Jon, sorry to disturb - have you got a free third period?” She asked. 

“Yes,” He answered, without having to look at his planner. “Why?”

“George is off ill. Can you cover for his GCSE class? He’s got things planned for them, they just need someone to keep an eye on them, and it’ll be better for them to have someone who can answer if they have any questions, I think.” 

Jon hummed. “Yes, I suppose so. Where are they with the syllabus?” 

“Same place as your lot, I think. Thanks Jon, it’s a big help. How’s the wedding planning going?” 

He groaned internally. Small talk - his mortal enemy. “Very well, thank you. We actually finished planning everything recently.” 

“Oh! Getting excited for the big day, then?” 

He hummed, looking down at his engagement ring with a fond smile. “Yes, I suppose I am. Well, I still have to finish preparing for my first class, so if you don’t need anything else…?” 

“Oh, right, of course. Sorry to have kept you! I’ll let you get back to it,” She replied, giving a little wave and closing the door behind her as she left. 

Once he was sure she was gone, he leant his head on his desk. Great, more work to do - he had planned to go out and find somewhere quiet away from the school to record a statement, but he supposed that would have to wait until after work, now. Still, nothing to be done about it. He pulled himself up from his chair, and set about finishing getting ready for his first lesson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you would like to support me on social media, you can find me on tumblr @marshy-system, on twitter @marshmiillow, and on instagram @marshmiillow.


	6. Wedding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The wedding of Jon and Martin <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha this isnt beta'd and it took ages im so sorry this took so long. also i wrote most of it in one day shrug.

Tomorrow was going to be the big day. Jon laid awake, a jittering bundle of nerves, watching Martin sleep peacefully next to him. His mind was plagued by a buzzing swarm of anxious thoughts, a comprehensive list of every possible thing that could go wrong tomorrow. Trying desperately not to think about it, he scanned the room they were staying in for something to focus on - a detail to memorise, a story to Know, a pleasant possibility to consider.

Their room was relatively lavish, with a queen size bed and grand mahogany wardrobe standing proudly at one side, opposite the bay window that looked over the courtyard of Skene House. Nothing held his attention for long, until finally he found himself staring at the two garment bags hanging on hooks next to the wardrobe. He thought about how Martin had looked trying on the suit, and then thought about standing with him and actually marrying him. In the morning they were really going to get married. By tomorrow afternoon he would be Jonathan Blackwood-Sims, husband of Martin Blackwood-Sims…. With a happy sigh and a flutter of butterflies in his stomach, he closed his eyes and smiled as he finally managed to fall into peaceful sleep. 

In the morning, they were woken up by their alarm and the rising sun, but took the time to lay in each other's arms and smile dopily at each other, which devolved into lovestruck giggles and chuckles. Jon kissed his cheek and rolled out of bed, shucking off his shirt and glancing over his shoulder at Martin as he unzipped the garment bag with his suit inside. 

It didn’t take long for them to get ready, slipping easily into the acutely tailored shirts and jackets. They pinned flowers to each other’s lapels, sharing a soft, doe-eyes look and exchanging cheek kisses. 

“You look beautiful, Jon,” Martin whispered, smiling brightly. 

“There are no words to describe how divine you look, my dear,” Jon replied, which made Martin giggle. 

“I thought I’m supposed to be the poet,” Martin replied. 

“Feel free to use it in a poem if you want.” 

“No, it’s fine. Come, sit and let me do your hair for you,” Martin instructed, perching on the bed with a hairbrush in hand and patting the spot next to him. The soft smile never left Jon’s face as he patiently sat and enjoyed the sensations of Martin braiding his hair with gentle, practised motions. 

He finished braiding Jon’s hair back for him, tucking a flower into it and resting a hand on his shoulder to let him know. Jon touched his hand and smiled at him sweetly, kissing his cheek and standing to take his hand properly. 

“Ready?” Martin asked softly, offering an encouraging smile. 

“Yes, I think so. Are you?” 

“Ready as I’ll ever be, I suppose.”

He hummed a little in agreement. “We’ll be fine, I promise.” 

Martin nodded and they made their way down to the library and dining room, both taking a moment to admire the decorations. Blue and white flowers were in the centre of each white cloth covered table, with silverware and porcelain plates all neatly arranged. At one side of the room was a long table, decorated with a large garland of flowers pinned across the front and silver candlesticks holding blue candles. 

The library itself was decorated with large, floor-standing silver candlesticks each decorated with the same white and blue flowers. The chairs, all neatly lined up, were all covered with white cloths and decorated with grey and blue bows in alternating rows. A garland was hung around the fireplace at the head of the room, as well as over the large windows on the opposite wall. Everything looked perfect. 

Whilst they had the time to themselves, the photographer took the opportunity to get a quick couple of photos of them together, and individually, in the library. 

Just as the couple were starting to make their way to the sitting area where their guests were waiting, they were ambushed by their best man and head groomsmaid. 

“Hey, lovebirds!” Tim cried, scooping first Jon and then Martin into a bear hug. “You both look amazing. How are you feeling? Excited? Nervous?”

“A bit of both,” Jon replied, dusting himself off a little before giving Sasha a brief hug as well. “You both look lovely as well.”

“Thanks, Jon. I like your hair, good job Martin!” She commented. 

“Ah, thanks, Sasha. Your hair looks really nice too,” Martin replied with a smile. Sasha’s hair was loosely curled in the front, and pinned up into a slightly loose bun in the back.  
“Oh, thank you,” She said, tucking one of the curls behind her ear. 

Jon checked his watch. “We’ll spend 15 minutes or so saying hello to everyone, and then at 3 o’clock we’ll all head into the library.” 

“Right-o! We’ll let you go say hi to everyone - they’re all gathered in the sitting room, talking over drinks I think,” Tim replied, clapping Jon on the shoulder. “Try not to be too nervous.”

“Actually, you go ahead without me Jon. I’ll stay and talk to Tim and Sasha for a bit,” Martin replied, offering a comforting smile. 

“Oh, alright. Well, I’ll see you soon then,” He replied, giving a little wave as he slipped away to head into the sitting room. 

It was a room as similarly lavish as the rest of the house - three grand, leather, buttoned sofas sat around the room, accompanied by several armchairs. A large mahogany coffee table sat in the centre, and was currently adorned with several drinks. 

“Jon! Good to see you,” Daisy called upon seeing him enter the room, getting up from where she had been sat next to Basira. She was wearing a dark grey two-piece suit, with a white collared shirt and wide light blue satin tie, with her short blonde hair neatly coiffed. They shared a brief hug. 

“Good to see you too, Daisy. You look good,” Jon replied, smiling as she returned to her seat next to Basira. 

“Thanks. You look good too.” 

“Yeah, you scrub up really well,” Basira added.

“Thanks, Basira. It’s good to see you too.”

“Hi, Jon. Martin not with you?” She asked, picking up her drink to sip it. She was wearing a light grey suit over a French tucked navy blouse, with a matching light grey headscarf. 

“No, he was busy talking to Tim and Sasha. Plotting something, I suspect, though I deliberately didn’t pry,” He replied. “I like your scarf, is it new?” 

“Yeah, bought it specifically for the occasion,” Basira replied with a smile. “Thanks.” 

“Not at all.” 

As Jon took the seat opposite them on the sofa, Melanie and Georgie walked in holding drinks. 

“Jon! Hey, you look great!” Georgie greeted, helping Melanie to find a chair.   
“Hello Georgie, Melanie. You both look good as well,” He replied with a smile. “It’s good to see you both.” 

“Hi, Jon,” Melanie greeted, turning to the direction of his voice. Georgie was wearing a black pair of slacks, with a white button down and grey blazer, her hair tied back with a blue satin headband. Melanie was wearing a simple blue button down tucked into a pair of grey slacks. 

“Did you want me to get you a drink?” Georgie offered.

“Oh, no, I’m alright. Save that for the drinks reception after the ceremony,” Jon replied. 

“Alright. I think I saw Gerry’s car pull up when I walked past the front windows, by the way,” She commented. Jon’s face lit up a little. 

“I heard my name, what’s up?” Gerry asked as he walked into the room with his hands in his pockets. 

“Gerry! Good to see you, I didn’t think you could make it,” Jon greeted, standing up to half-hug him. 

“I pulled some strings,” He replied. “It’s good to see you too, man. You look good.” 

“Thank you. As do you,” Jon replied. “Your hair looks good.” 

“Thanks, I got it done professionally for once,” Gerry replied with a grin. Indeed, his hair was freshly dyed shiny black, and was pulled back into a loose braid. His shirt - with collar unbuttoned - was black, and his three-piece suit dark grey with silver eye cufflinks. 

“Gerry! It’s good to finally get to meet you,” Daisy greeted. “Come in, sit, we’ll get you a drink.” 

“Sure, thanks,” He replied, taking the seat next to her. 

Next to arrive was Oliver Banks, followed shortly by Jordan Kennedy, both of whom Jon had insisted be invited. After that was Rosie, wearing a very lovely blue dress, which completed the guest list. After greeting everyone and catching up for a while, Jon slipped away to find Martin again whilst they were all ushered into the library to take their seats. 

With the hub-bub of everyone moving rooms, and Jon, Martin, Tim and Sasha occupied with making sure everything was ready and in place, no-one noticed the wedding crashers arrive. 

Tim and Sasha were stood at the head of the room, either side of the officiator’s table, and as quiet fell over the room, music began to play. Not wanting to do grandiose entrances for either in particular, the couple had settled on entering together, and so walked hand in hand down the aisle to their places. 

“Good Afternoon, everyone. We are delighted to have you all gathered here today, to bear witness to the marriage of Jon and Martin. Today marks a new chapter in their life together, and may it be one that lasts a lifetime. Jon, Martin, the vows you make here today are promises to one another, to remain by each other's side and to continue through life wherever it may take you always together. I believe the couple have written their own vows,” The officiant introduced the ceremony, gesturing for them to go ahead and recite their vows. 

Jon went first. “Martin, my dearest Martin. We have been through so much together already - and though in the beginning I was not the best to you, you have joined me on a journey that has seen me become a much different, much better person. When you asked me to marry you on the beach that day, I could barely process it - the idea that you would willing spend your life with me was baffling. But now I can see, because I know that it is exactly the way that I feel about you. I can’t wait to continue that journey with you, and to continue becoming a better person alongside you. I love you.” 

Martin was tearing up slightly. “Jon. When we first met, the only way that I could talk about you, was to myself, in the form of poetry. You’ve been my muse for years now, and so, to honour that, I wrote you a poem:

A ring can mean many things   
Unbroken circle of infinite cycles   
Wrapped around your finger like I was  
All those years ago   
So many seasons cycled past since then  
Revolutions and resolutions   
You were prickly, I’ll admit  
My spinning wheel of obsession  
But I willing pricked my finger  
Because it meant sleeping next to you.

I love you.” 

Jon was tearing up now, smiling dopily to himself. The officiant spoke again.   
“That was beautiful. Tim, Sasha, the rings?”

Tim grinned and stepped forward to present the wedding ring to Martin, Sasha doing the same for Jon. 

“Now, Jon, repeat after me -” 

“I, Jonathan Sims, do you take you, Martin Blackwood, to be my lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, through sickness and through health, til death do us part.” 

Jon carefully slid the ring onto Martin’s hand, looking up at him with doe eyes and a soft, genuine smile.

“And Martin-”

“I, Martin Blackwood, do you take you, Jonathan Sims, to be my lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, through sickness and through health, til death do us part.”

Martin, in turn, slid the ring onto Jon’s hand, taking both of them to hold as the officiant continued speaking.

“Now, if anyone has any objections as to why these two may not be wed - speak now, or forever hold your peace.” 

Silence fell over the room - of course there were no objections. Even the wedding crashers weren’t here to do that. 

“Actually, I do have something to say,” Jon said, clearing his throat and turning to face the guests. 

“Jon?!” Martin questioned, looking mildly panicked. 

“Get Elias Bouchard and Peter Lukas, _out of our wedding!_ ” He shouted, pointing to the pair sat at the back of the room. Murmurs broke out amongst the crowd, and Daisy got up to easily drag Elias away - Peter took his own leave as soon as people began staring at him. Once she returned, Jon turned and nodded for the officiant to continue. 

“Alright. Then by the power invested in me, I now pronounce you husband and husband! You may kiss.” 

Cheers and claps broke out across the crowd as the newlyweds shared a kiss, walking hand in hand down the aisle to lead the group out into the courtyard which had been set up for the drinks reception and photographs. Everyone gathered to drink various fancy cocktails and talk more, whilst the photographer finished setting everything up. 

First, there were photos of the new couple on their own. Next they had Jon, Martin, Tim and Sasha together, then just Jon and Sasha, followed by just Martin and Tim. There were photos taken with each couple - Tim and Sasha, Georgie and Melanie, Daisy and Basira - with the whole group together, and lastly Jon got one with Gerry. 

Once all of the photos had been taken, everyone returned inside and made their way to the dining room. Each of the places had a name card, carefully written with silver ink in fancy calligraphy. On one table was Georgie, Melanie, Gerry, and Oliver. On the other was Basira, Daisy, Rosie, and Jordan. Tim, Sasha, Jon and Martin all sat at the long table at the head of the room. Once everyone was seated, waiters came and served everyone dinner.

After everyone had finished eating and the plates cleared away, Tim stood up and hit a fork against his champagne flute to grab everyone’s attention. 

“Hey everyone. So, as best man, it’s sort of my job to do a speech now, and honestly, I didn’t _really_ plan what I’m gonna say. I mean - this has been a hella long time coming, I think we were all just sat around wondering when they were finally gonna pull themselves together enough to actually get hitched. Literally everyone who saw these two lovebirds interact for more than 2 seconds could see how absolutely head over heels smitten they were - even if Jon took a bit longer to get there, and even longer to admit he actually has emotions. Shock, horror, Jon having feelings. But hey, I think we saw today just how much of a softie he really is. I’m just really honoured to be chosen to be Martin’s best man, to do this speech, and to be here to share Jon and Martin’s wedding with them and you all. So, a toast! To the happy couple!”

Everyone echoed the toast and cheered, clinking glasses with each other and drinking with some muttered laughter at Tim’s off the cuff speech. After everyone was done drinking and talking and the room had quietened again, the wedding cake was brought in and placed on a separately decorated table. 

They cut the cake together, and many many photographs were taken - on people’s phones and by the wedding photographer. They fed each other cake, got icing on each others noses, and laughed together before the cake was finally properly cut and everyone was handed a piece to take with them back to their table. 

In the meantime, the library was converted into the dance floor - the altar replaced with a DJ kit, candlesticks replaced with speakers and disco lights. Before the party really began though, everyone gathered around to watch the newlyweds first dance, played to Gabrielle Aplin’s cover of The Power of Love. Immediately afterwards, though, Get the Party Started by P!nk was played and everyone got up to join in the dancing. Tim however, disappeared, slipping away to change into his party outfit.

He returned during a song change, so the room was a little quieter than it would have otherwise been when he burst in. All eyes turned to be on him, and his incredibly gaudy LED flamingo sunglasses and pineapple print blue Hawaiian shirt get-up just as the first bars of Shut Up and Dance started playing. Everyone laughed as Tim danced his way into the centre of the room, dragging as many people as he could along with him on the way. He took Sasha by the hands and pulled her into the centre of the dancefloor with him; Sasha just giggled and went along with it. Martin dragged Jon into joining in as well, and soon the group of friends were all dancing and laughing at themselves.

“What on earth are you wearing, Tim?” Jon questioned when the song finished, dusting himself off and taking a moment to marvel at Tim’s extraordinarily ostentatious outfit.

“My party outfit! Obviously!” He cheered, doing a spin and finishing it with double finger guns. “You can’t say you don’t love it!”

“I can and I will,” He replied cynically, raising an eyebrow. It didn’t last long, though, as someone handed them each a bottle of cider. 

“It’s time to par-tay!” Tim cried, punching the air and grinning as the next song started and the lights started pulsing along with it.

Many, many more drinks were had by everyone at the party, and a lot of bad dancing happened - mostly started or continued by Tim, ever the life of the party. The YMCA and Macarena were of course played, as well as Vengabus and many Britney Spears songs at Tim’s request. Tim did the entire choreography to Circus perfectly, despite being incredibly drunk by that time, and Jon showed off his swing dancing skills. Other songs that got played included I Want To Dance With Somebody, which Martin roped Jon into dancing along to, Love Shack, the Cha Cha Slide, Dancing Queen, and Bohemian Rhapsody. Tim also slipped in a request for Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy, which got everyone laughing and watching as Martin and Jon went back and forth with it. 

The reception party lasted long into the late evening, and once it began to wind down in the early hours of the morning, everyone began to leave in taxis for their various hotel rooms. Martin and Jon retreated back upstairs into their hotel room in the house itself, the same they had stayed in the previous evening. 

They didn’t leave each other alone the whole night. Neither got much sleep, and neither minded, because such a perfect night being finished with late night, drunken cuddles was pretty agreeable to both of them. In his drunken state, Jon was even incredibly easy to persuade into singing, and Martin finally managed to fall asleep to the sounds of Jon gently singing I Can’t Help Falling In Love.

In the morning, both of them were incredibly hungover. They laughed it off together, packing up their things carefully - though it took them a while, since they spent most of the morning stealing kisses and cuddling each other. After getting a taxi home, they spent the afternoon cuddling each other and Hudson, who was incredibly vocal in his demands for food and attention. 

“You know, we can’t sit on the sofa together all day. We have a honeymoon to go on~ We have to pack, we leave tomorrow morning,” Martin reminded his husband. 

“Yes, I know, love. I can’t wait to have you all to myself for an entire week~” 

Martin giggled and blushed. “You already get me all to yourself,” He pointed out. 

“Well, yes, but we both have jobs and such that we have to spend our time on instead. This week, it’ll be just the two of us.”

“I suppose that is true. Yeah… Just the two of us for a week will be nice. Hey, y’know York has ghost tours and stuff?” 

“Does it really?” Jon questioned, raising a quizzical eyebrow.

“Yeah! We should go on one. I bet we could top all of the ghost stories,” Martin replied with a grin. 

“Yes, we probably could, so what’s the point?”

“It’ll be a good laugh! Besides, I want to do all of the dumb touristy stuff. It’s not something I’ve ever really had the chance to do. York is a really big touristy place, right? It’s got the York Eye and the really old gothic cathedral.” 

Jon’s expression softened. “Alright, sure. We can go on a ‘ghost walk’, or whatever you call them. I honestly don’t mind what we do this week, as long as whatever it is, it’s together.” 

“Of course, Jon. We’ll always be together. And when we’re not, you’ll never have long to wait for me to come back.” 

“Is that a promise, Mr Blackwood-Sims?”

Martin giggled at him, kissing him sweetly before replying. “Promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> Don't forget to comment and kudos if you liked it! More soon to come


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